
Class ?Q Z 4lfc 



LITTERS OF A TRAVELLER, 



3 5 Te» 



GEORGE SAND. 

TRANSLATED BY 

E L I Z A A. ASHURST. 

EDITED BY 

MATILDA M. HAYS, 

AUTHOR OF "HELEN STANLEY/' 



LONDON : 

E. CHURTON, 26, HOLLES STREET, 

1847. 



V 






ADVERTISEMENT. 

The Editor, in bringing the George Sand series to a sudden 
close, feels it due to her author, no less than to herself, 
explicitly to declare, that nothing but inadequate support 
upon the part of the reading public, prevents the " English 
Edition of George Sand's Works," announced at the be- 
ginning of the year, from being carried out to its fullest 
extent. The selection which she considered best adapted 
for the first year of the Series, will however, even in its 
incompleteness, be sufficient to appeal against the pre- 
judice which condemns without a hearing, and the works 
already published in their English form, will, in their gradual 
dissemination, assist in obtaining from the English public, 
the verdict, which, sooner or later, must place George Sand 
among the noblest social reformers of the age. 



Matilda M. Hays. 



London, 
December, 1847. 



TO GEORGE SAO. 



A DESIRE. 

Thotj large-brained woman and large hearted man, 

Self-called George Sand ! whose soul, amid the lions 

Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance, 

And answers roar for roar, as spirits can : 

I would some wild miraculous thunder ran 

Above the applauded circus, in appliance 

Of thine own nobler nature's strength and science, 

Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan, 

From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place 

With holier light ! That thou to woman's claim, 

And man's might join beside the angel's grace 

Of a pure genius sanctified from blame, 

Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace, 

To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame. 

E. B. Baeeeit. 



TO GEORGE SAND. 



A RECOGNITION. 

True genius, but true woman ! dost deny 

Thy woman's nature with a manly scorn, 

And break away the gauds and armlets worn 

By weaker women in captivity ? 

Ah vain denial ! that revolted cry 

Is sobbed in by a woman's voice forlorn : — 

Thy woman's hair, my sister, all unshorn 

Floats back dishevelled strength in agony, 

Disproving thy man's name. And while before 

The world thou burnest in poetic fire, 

We see thy woman-heart beat evermore 

Through the large flame. Beat purer, heart, and higher, 

Till God unsex thee on the spirit shore ; 

To which alone unsexing, purely aspire. 

E. B. Barrett. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The book, of which we are now offering a translation to the 
English public, is the most attaching to the heart, and at the 
same time, we do not hesitate to say, the most important for the 
intellect, which we have met with for nearly twenty years. It 
is a fragment of the secret biography of a powerful intelligence, 
the confession of a great and noble soul, who has suffered much 
and loved much, addressed to all those who suffer and who love ; 
and at the same time it displays a burning page of truth 
snatched from contemporary history ; the account of a moral crisis 
which has lasted from 1815 until now ; the long and prophetic 
lamentation of a whole generation, which has come into the 
world between two suns, whose life, marked by genius and mis- 
fortune, has consumed itself amongst the ruins of social order, 
without being able to escape and spread itself joyously over the 
promised land of the future. The last pages of the book are 
illumined by the beams of the coming day, and the vague out- 
lines of the hoped-for land reveal themselves ; a reality distant, 
without doubt, but certain, nevertheless, in the opinion of this 
way- weary " Traveller." 

Let those, who have never suffered from the grievances of the 
present day ; — to whom, life as it is, without a heaven, without 

A 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

love, with no common faith, appears yet desirable and normal ; 
and who, shadows among shadows, demand from this existence 
merely a course of agreeable sensations, from art, the pastime 
of an hour, from philosophy, a mere aimless gymnastic exercise 
for the intellectual faculties, from religion, only brick and mortar 
chapels, empty formulas, and individual hopes, leave this book 
unread. It is not meant for them. Doubtless they would find 
in it, matter for admiration, landscapes traced by the hand of a 
master, fascinating brilliancy of style, pages often equal, some- 
times superior to the best pages of Rousseau's Reveries, but the 
essence, the soul of the book, the only part to which the author 
would attach importance will utterly escape them. Those only 
who have early learned to think with Schiller that M Life is real, 
life is earnest,'' '* and who neither shrink from, nor repulse any of 
its consequences, can seize its import. They know that life has 
only been bestowed upon us that we may incarnate in ourselves, 
the ideal of which the prophecy has been implanted in our hearts 
by God, and that if God has not placed us as isolated beings in 
this world, it is to teach us self-devotion, that we may consecrate 
the results of this painful conquest to something beyond our own 
individuality. They know that the secret of this world is 
progress, laborious and incessant progress of the soul, and of all 
souls, through and for each other, towards eternal truth ; that 
life is one of God's thoughts, realizing itself in time and space ; 
that the physical universe is a grand symbol, a living form of this 
thought of which each epoch unfolds a fresh developement ; — 
man, an intelligence, a volition called to interpret the symbol, to 
investigate the form, in order to approximate towards the divine 
idea : that labour is consequently the law of our existence ; 
repose, its desertion and suicide. They comprehend, without 
profaning, the grand figure of the martyr whom humanity has 
worshipped, without imitating, for eighteen centuries. They feel 

* " Ernst ist das Leben." 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

all that there is sacred in lamentation ; fruitful and inevitable in 
doubt ; prophetic and deeply religious in those instructive move- 
ments of nations which are stigmatized by the name of revolt, 
in those aspirations after the renewal of faith, which the narre 
of Heresy is used to smother. They fight and shed their blood 
for the good cause ; — and it is for them, her brethren, that George 
Sand has written this work ; for them, that this translation has 
been undertaken. They will draw from it consolations worthy 
of themselves; new strength for those moments of weak- 
ness which cannot fail to visit them during their struggle ; and a 
profound religious sentiment, without which the struggle would 
neither have aim nor hope. 

It is this which has been so much wanted until now. 

The principal characteristic of this period of transition, which has 
swallowed up one generation, and in which we are still dragging 
our weary way, whilst it is gnawing into the heart of the youth 
of the present time, is not, whatever may have been said, the 
want of poetry, there is too much sorrow, too much of presenti- 
ment in the world, for this to be true. Neither is it the want of 
individual courage. Never, perhaps, since many centuries, has 
martyrdom been braved with more stoicism in Europe. Neither 
is it the power of high thought which is wanting; — the last fifty 
years have seen historical intelligence, the closest analysis of 
social phenomena, scientific observation and philosophical in- 
tuition attain a degree of power which few of our ancestors 
could even have conceived. The cause of the evils of to day, 
so fatal to our youth, is, on one side, a foolish pride of individu- 
ality ; on the other, the want of persistant energy of will. There 
is in us, children of the nineteenth century, something of the 
Titan and of Hamlet. We commence by believing exclusively in 
ourselves, we end by believing in nothing. And both these 
phases of the soul, through which so many of us have passed, 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

arise from one and the same cause, the want of a sacred and 
common faith. Life, thus disinherited, escapes from its straight- 
forward path, and in its irregular course, now soars to heaven, now 
plunges into the lowest depths, instead of expanding, calm and 
strong, through weal or woe. The Titan falls, overcome by 
the law of things ; Hamlet sinks under the weight of an idea ; — 
the Believer alone remains standing, like an old oak beaten by 
the tempests. — Sadly and silently does he accomplish his daily 
labour without cowardly discouragement ; he knows that the 
flower of his soul, hope, can only bloom beyond the cradle of 
transformation, in this world called the grave. 

The Heaven is gloomy, the earth encumbered with ruins, and 
from their depths rise long and mournful wailings, whieh express 
the sufferings of the millions of human beings who are swarming 
amongst these ruins. Proud and eager, the young man darts 
forward on his route, his pure heart throbbing with emotion, 
his brow frowning from the inner working of the thoughts of 
emancipation, peculiar to the age which has sent him forth ; he 
inhales, even unconsciously to himself, through every pore of his 
strong and manly breast, the freshening breath of the last hour 
of night. What obstacles can stop his course ? Danger is in- 
viting at his age, the joys of triumph and glory, which every man 
at the outset of his career, dreams of as so easily won, are his 
goal ; suffering itself has charms for youth. He goes onward, 
and still onward, through impulse, not by the energy of a re- 
flective will ; spurred on by hope, not by a sentiment of Duty im- 
posed by Faith ; because he believes in himself, not in God, 
and his holy law of labour ; still he goes on his way, espousing 
the cause of the oppressed, revolting against injustice ; he pro- 
tests, if not in the name of Truth, in the name of his own 
dignity, against the phantoms, the gigantic lies, which en- 
cumber his route. Later, his energy relaxes, his step hesitates, 
he had dreamed of danger, but of a brilliant danger, and a 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

deadly struggle ; he has found inertia, that passive resistance 
which exhausteth but killeth not; the mocking smiles of the 
sceptic, the indifference of the unintelligent many, where he 
had expected to meet the savage cry of hatred, or noisy en- 
thusiasm. He had strength enough for the martyrdom of the 
body, not for the martyrdom of the soul, — barren disappoint- 
ment. Friendships, which he fondly believed immortal, have 
vanished like a morning dream. Love ought to have wreathed 
him a crown of roses, but the roses are withered by the icy 
breath of society, they have perished under the tempest of 
human chances, the thorns alone remain. Glory flies before 
his pursuit. If he soars high he is solitary, if he clings to the 
earth he had so wished to purify and transform, he is stained 
by its impurities, and torn by its brambles. He has no faith to 
guide his steps ; — the men around have no faith. His imprudent 
mother has murmured in his ear, with a kiss, be happy! His father 
has said to him, he rich ! Rich and happy ! Why should he not be 
so ? Why should he be self devoted to unhappiness for a world 
incapable of appreciating or understanding his sacrifice ? This is 
the commencement of his temptation. If he yield to it, he be- 
comes either a misanthrope or an egotist, — Timon or Don Juan : 
or if his endowments prevent his sinking so low, he will go 
through the world, useless to others, a burthen to himself, 
pursuing the Idea without its application, like Faust ; or the 
phantom of suicide across the Glaciers, like Manfred. Alas ! 
how many souls, dear to our heart, have we not seen come to 
this point? How many young men, perhaps even amongst 
those to whom these " Letters of a Traveller " allude, under 
ficticious names, (and if this be true, it must be one of George 
Sand's bitterest griefs) — how many young men have we not 
saluted at the commencement of their career, glowing with en- 
thusiasm and the poetry of great enterprises, whom we see to- 
day, dragging themselves along, precocious old men, with the 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

wrinkles of cold calculation on their brow, calling themselves 
free from illusion, when they are only disheartened, and, practical, 
when they are only common place ! 

And how many amongst them might not have been saved, 
if instead of saying to them he happy, their mothers had said 
to them with the first developement of their intelligence* be good 
and pure ! if instead of saying to them be rich, their fathers had 
repeated unceasingly to them, be strong, know how to suffer ! there 
is no treasure worth a tranquil conscience J How many of these 
souls, good in themselves, but feeble because they had no other 
support than their own individuality, would have escaped the 
atheism of despair, if at the acme of the crisis, a friendly hand 
had touched their brow, and a faithful voice murmured in their 
ear ; 

" Be faithful to the dream of your youth ; it is the reflection 
of a distant Ideal; but, which, from the very fact of its being im- 
planted in each and all of us, must be realized sooner or later. 
Keep hope alive in your soul ; it is the bud of the flower. Be- 
lieve in friendship, worship love, but forget not that neither 
friendship nor love are happiness, they are but its promise : they 
are two wings, bestowed by God upon your soul, not to stagnate 
in mere enjoyment, but to raise yourselves to a nobler elevation. 
Of what do you complain ? For what cause, and against whom 
do you raise the cry of revolt ? Had you then formed so false 
an estimate of life as to imagine that the reward of your labour 
would be met with in this existence ? Does not the whole 
universe declare to you that this life is but a passage from one 
element to another ? Is not aspiration the normal state of your 
soul ? There is neither happiness nor repose upon this earth, 
what you call repose is egotism, the death of the soul ; and 
what you dream of, under the name of happiness, would be the 
cessation of all aspiration, that is to say, a cessation of all which 
constitutes the essence of a human being. All which has its 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

beginning, perhaps, only continues its developement here,ha s its 
end elsewhere. In this lower world there is, for us, only conso- 
lation, there is but hope. Is it the world's fault if you require 
from it more than it can give you r Is it God's fault if he has 
not aecorued to you the power of reaching the haven before the 
voyage is finished ? You are yet in the midst of the ocean ; — 
struggle on bravely, the hand on the oar, and the eye raised to 
Heaven; the very billow which affrights you wdll forward you on 
your way, and you are strong enough to conquer it, as you 
would a fiery courser ; but let your arm drop, your energy relax 
for a moment, and you are thrust back to the point from which 
you departed, or swallowed up in the depths. Cast behind you, 
then, these phantoms of glory and enjoyment, fleeting clouds 
over your soul's heaven, illuminated by the sun's rays one 
second, dark and gloomy the moment after. There is but 
one reality in our human life : Duty, mournful, but sacred as 
the stars, as all lovely things. Make a pact with Duty : — God, 
in his goodness, will double your strength and give you love 
for your consolation. I, too, have suffered, I, also, have found 
life bitter ; I have passed through all your storms, my heart has 
also been torn by all your deceptions. But, God, my faith in 
Duty and Love have saved me. Men have seemed also to me 
degraded,wicked ; — but, was not this an added reason to endeavour, 
at all risks, to make them better ? Often have I taken the phan- 
tom of Love for Love itself; but ought I, for that, to desert its 
reality and smother its divine instinct within my heart ? When 
I found myself ready to fail, to sink under isolation and suffering, 
I thought of other sufferings, of the child of the people martyred 
by misery, and deprived of the life of the soul ; of Genius mis- 
understood, of nations enslaved ; of those who have died for 
them with a smile upon their lips, of Jesus on the cross, and 
his words of forgiveness, and I went on my way again. My 
cheek is pale and worn, my heart is dead to pleasure, but I am 



12 " INTRODUCTION. 

calm ; — faith in the future and in God, this is enough for the few 
days yet remaining to us." 

Well then ! it is thus Madame Sand speaks, through these 
"Lettres d'un Voyageur," to our whole contemporary generation; 
— so eager in undertaking the struggle against egotism and social 
falsehood, and so easily discouraged at the first defeat. 

A witness to so much sublime aspiration and so much cowardly 
apostacy, having lived the whole life of the age, having suffered 
from all its sufferings, the more acutely, through being compelled 
to their analysis by the light of her own genius, she has believed 
that it might be well to unveil to her brethren the origin of the 
moral crisis through which she has passed, and the secret which 
has saved her, not indeed from grief, but from despair. She 
has stopped midway in her life, that decisive point which comes 
to all, but which, in us, has no importance for the world, in which 
the disenchantment of worldly illusion commences, and dreams, 
the dreams of friendships we believed eternal, dreams of love 
founded on enjoyment, dreams of immense enterprises requiring 
the martyrdom of one's whole life, but which one thinks may be 
realized in a few years, flee, one by one, leaving the bitterness 
of disappointment within, and a desert around us. She has dis- 
played these internal crises to our eyes, pointing out to us, with 
a hand yet trembling with pain, the star of safety, towards which 
our life must tend unceasingly. Dark gleams of the tempests 
of this life, and the holy, calm reflection of hopes beyond this 
existence, intermingle in every page of this record, which is our 
record, traced by the hand of the best of sisters, on whom God 
has bestowed the genius wanting in ourselves. 

May the sentiment of the good she has worked to many 
amongst us soften the recollection of her own sorrows ! It was 
in 1836 that I first met with these " Letters,' 1 in the numbers, I 
believe, of the " Re'vue des Deux Mondes." My dearest friend 
had perished in the prisons of Charles Albert; others were con- 



INTRODUCTION. " 13 

demned to drag out their lives there, for twenty years ; others 
were still perishing of the death of the soul. Plans, formed with 
all the energies of mind and heart, had been just annihilated on 
the very point of accomplishment. From the tree of my life the 
fairest hopes withered every day, I heard them crackle like dead 
leaves under my footsteps. I had no longer faith in men ; no 
longer faith in myself. I believed in God, and had faith in the 
future of my country ; but, from time to time, doubt swept over 
me with its icy wings. The disgraceful character of a perse- 
cutor, which, at that time, was forced upon Switzerland, by foreign 
Cabinets, had commenced ; I was about to be chased from a 
land which I had learned to love as my second country. This 
book was to me a friend, a consolation. This sisterly voice, its 
accents broken by suffering, yet rinding strength to throw a 
word of encouragement and hope to those " who were yet wan- 
dering mid storm and darkness," was sweet to me as is the cradle 
song to the weeping child. Many others have felt, many will 
doubtless feel, all I felt then. Travellers themselves through 
difficult paths, they will learn through these " Letters " to what 
point discouragement and doubt can extend ; and know how to 

regain strength and hope " and the call of a friendly 

voice, from the height of the next hill, as they commence 
the ascent of the lofty mountain," will be unto them, I doubt 
not, an encouragement and a consolation. 

JOSEPH MAZZINI. 



PREFACE. 



Neveb was a work, if this may be called a work, less reasoned 
and less laboured than these two volumes of letters, written at 
distant periods, and almost always after deep emotion, of which 
they are not the account but the reflection. They have been an irre- 
flective and instructive solace to my anxieties during the fatigue 
and weariness, which would not allow me to commence or con- 
tinue a romance. Some were even written during a journey, 
hastily finished for the courier, and thrown into the post, without 
any thought of publication. 

The idea of making a collection of them, and of filling up some 
vacancies, determined me at last to ask for them again from those 
of my friends whom I supposed to have preserved them ; and 
these are probably not the worst, as will easily be believed ; the 
expression of personal emotion being always more free and sin- 
cere in a tete-a-t&e, than with an unknown third party. This un- 
known third party is the reader, is the public ; and if there were 
not in the act of writing a charm, often mournful, and sometimes 
intoxicating, almost always irresistible, which makes one forget 
the unknown witness and abandon oneself to the subject, I think 
we should seldom have the courage to write about ourselves ; 
unless we had a great deal of good to tell. Now, it will easily 
be granted, after reading these letters, that I have never found 
myself injhis last situation ; and that either a great deal of bold- 



16 PREFACE. 

ness or thoughtlessness must have been required to entertain the 
public with my personality through two volumes. 

I mention all this, merely to excuse to my readers, lovers of 
romances, and accustomed to see me commit nothing worse, at 
any rate, the unlucky idea that has possessed me of bringing my- 
self upon the scene, instead of personages rather better placed 
and rather better draped for their public appearance. I have just 
said, it was when my brain was empty of heroes and adventures, 
that like a manager, whose troop of actors is behindhand at 
the hour of performance, I make my appearance, in trouble 
and robe-de-chambre, upon the stage, and recite vaguely the pro- 
logue of the expected piece. In fact, I believe, that whoever is 
interested in the secret movements of the human heart may find 
certain familiar letters, certain acts, insignificant in appearance, 
in the life of an artist, which would be the most explicit preface, 
the clearest exposition of his work. Let the lovers of fiction 
forgive me something, nevertheless. In several of these letters, 
I have laboured in their behalf, by dressing up my melancholy self 
in a costume not habitually its own, and making its material ex- 
istence disappear, as much as possible, behind a moral existence 
more truthful and more interesting. Therefore, in these letters, 
one cannot always distinguish whether it is a young man, an old 
man, or a child, relating his impressions. What does my age and 
condition matter to my reader ? It is at the opera that youth' 
beauty, and grace interest the eyes and the imagination. In a 
work like this, it is emotion, reverie, sadness, enthusiasm, and 
anxiety, which ought to render themselves interesting to the 
reader. What he asks from one who yields his soul to the anger 
or pity of the examiner, is to let him see the movements of this 
personified heart, if I may use this expression. Thus, whilst 
speaking sometimes like a truant schoolboy, sometimes like an 
old gouty uncle, sometimes like a young and ardent soldier, I have 
done nothing but paint my soul under the form it assumed at 
those moments, sometimes careless and joyous, sometimes mo- 
rose and fatigued, sometimes bounding and juvenile again ; and 



PREFACE. 17 

which of us does not contain in himself, in each hour of his life, 
these three ages of moral, intellectual, and physical existence. What 
old man does not feel himself a child at certain times ; and what 
child does not sometimes feel the weariness of old age ? What man 
is not at once both aged and childish, in nearly all his anxieties ? 
Have I done aught else than write the history of each of us ? 
No, I have done nothing else ; neither was it my wish to do aught 
else. I did not wish, that under this disguise of a problematical 
traveller, the secret of some strange and remarkable individu- 
ality should be sought for. No one can suspect me of such a 
puerile thought, when they see with how little care I have ex- 
posed my bleeding heart to psychological experimentation. If I 
have done this, if I have yielded up myself to this torture without 
shame and without fear, it is through the knowledge I have of 
the wounds which rankle amongst the men of our own time, and 
the need which all have to know one another, to study one 
another, to sound their own consciences, to seek for self- 
enlightenment, through the revelations of their instincts and 
their necessities, their evils, and their aspirations. My soul, 
I am sure, has served as a mirror to many who have cast 
their eyes upon it. Several have felt afraid of themselves at the 
view, and seeing so much weakness, so much terror, irresolution, 
mobility, humiliated pride and powerless strength, they cry out 
that I am an invalid, a fool, an exceptional case, a prodigy of 
pride and scepticism. No, no, I am like yourselves, ye men of 
bad faith ; I only differ from you in not denying the evil ; and 
not seeking to beautify, with the colours of youth and health, my 
visage, now disfigured by despair. You have drunk from the 
same chalice, you have suffered from the same torments ; like 
me, you have doubted ; like me, you have denied and blas- 
phemed ; like me, you have wandered in darkness, cursing God 
and humanity, through want of understanding. In the last cen- 
tury, Voltaire wrote under the statue of Cupid, 

" Whoe'er thou art, thy master see ; 
He is, or was, or ought to be.' 5 



18 PREFACE. 

To-day it would be upon the pedestal of another allegory that 
Voltaire would inscribe these celebrated verses ; it would be 
Doubt, and no longer Love, whom his aged, trembling hand 
would illustrate with this distich. Yes, doubt, modest or pe- 
dantic ; scepticism, bold or timid, triumphant or desolate, har- 
dened or repentant, oppressor or oppressed, tyrant or victim, Man 
of our own times ! — 

" Whoe'er thou art, thy master see -, 
He is, or was, or ought to be." 

Do not let us blush, therefore, so much, one for another, nor 
carry the burden of our misery so hypocritically. All of us are 
passing through a great moral epidemic, and if we have not al- 
ready been its prey, we are ready to become so. None but 
atheists make a crime and a disgrace of doubt, as none but 
cowards pretend never to have known fear. Doubt is the evil 
of our age, like the cholera ; but it is salutary, like all those 
crises towards which God directs our human intelligence ; it is 
the precursor of moral health, of faith. Doubt is born of exami- 
nation ; it is the unhealthy and morbid offspring of a powerful 
mother, liberty. But it is not oppression that can cure this ma- 
lady. Oppressors are atheists, oppression and atheism can 
only destroy. Liberty will, herself, take her feeble infant in her 
arms and raise it towards heaven, towards the light, and it will 
become robust and full of faith as herself. It will be transformed, 
it will become hope, and in its turn it will give birth to one of 
divine origin and nature, to knowledge ; who will bring forth the 
last-born, which will be faith. 

As for mc, a poor convalescent, w r ho but yesterday was knocking 
at the gates of death, and who know well the causes and effects 
of my own suffering, I have told them to you, and I will again 
declare them; my suffering is your suffering, doubt accompanied 
by ignorance. A little more knowledge will save us ; let us exa- 
mine more, learn ever, let us attain knowledge. Where we have 



PREFACE. 19 

denied truth (I among the first,) we have only proclaimed our 
own blindness, and the generations coming after us will draw 
useful lessons from our age of darkness. They will say, we 
did well to complain, to be agitated, to fill the air with 
our cries, to weary heaven with our questions ; and by impa- 
tience and despair, to save ourselves from the evil which destroys 
those who slumber. In the retreat from Russia, fearful spectres 
were seen traversing the snows, endeavouring, amidst groans 
and imprecations, to find their road to their native land. Others, 
who seemed calm and resigned, lay down upon the ice, and, re- 
maining there, were frozen by death. Woe to the resigned of 
to-day ! Woe to those who accept injustice, error, ignorance, 
sophistry, and doubt, with a serene countenance. They will 
perish, they are dead, already buried in the ice and snow ; but 
those who are wandering with bleeding feet, and crying out with 
bitter complaining, will find the road to the promised land, and 
will see its sunshine. 

Ignorance, doubt, sophistry, injustice, have I said ? Yes, 
these are the shoals in the midst of which we are trying to direct 
our course ; these are the dangers and misfortunes which are scat- 
tered over our life. On a re-perusal of these " Letters of a Tra- 
veller," which I had not had courage to see or judge of, for many 
years, I am not at all surprised at finding myself ignorant, scepti- 
cal, sophistical, inconsistent, unjust, in every line; nevertheless, I 
have altered nothing of this unformed work, except a few awk- 
ward words, and some pages on common topics of little interest. 
The second volume has, in general, but little value under any 
point of view. The first, although filled with errors of all sorts, 
and yet more common-place, has a certain value ; that of having 
been written with a spontaneous carelessness, full of youth and 
frankness. If it fall into the hands of grave men, it will make 
them smile ; but if these grave men possess also some goodness 
and sincerity, they will find in it matter for pity, for consolation, 
for the encouragement and instruction of the dreamy, ardent, 
and blind youth of our epoch. Becoming, through my confes- 



20 PREFACE. 

sion, better acquainted with the cause and nature of our suffer- 
ings, they will become more compassionate, and will learn, that 
it is neither with bitter raillery nor pedantic anathemas, that they 
can be cured, but with true teachings and the profound senti- 
ment of human charity. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 



Venice, 1st May, 1834. 

It was nine o'clock when I arrived at Bassano, on a cold damp 
evening. I went to bed, sad and fatigued, after silently ex- 
changing a grasp of the hand with my travelling companion. 

I awoke at sunrise, and saw from my window, the ivy-covered 
battlements of the ancient fortress whieh commands the valley, 
denned against the clear blue of the atmosphere. I went out 
immediately to examine it, and convince myself of the beauty 
of the weather. 

I had not gone a hundred paces before I found the doctor 
sitting on a stone, smoking a pipe seven feet long, for which he 
had paid eight-pence to a peasant. He was so charmed with his 
bargain, and so enveloped in the clouds of his tobacco, that he 
had some trouble in perceiving me. When he had dismissed from 
his lips the last puff of smoke he could extract from what he' 
called his " pipetta" he proposed to me, to go and breakfast at a 
coffee shop near the trenches of the citadel, while the vetturino 
who was to take us back to Venice, was getting ready for the 
journey. I agreed to do so. 

I recommend to you, if you return by this route, the ca£6 of 
the Trenches, at Bassano, as one of the happiest chances which 
can fall to the lot of a traveller, thoroughly tired of the classic 
chefs-d'neuvres of Italy. Do you remember that, when we left 



22 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

France, you said you cared for nothing but sculptured marble ? 
You called me a savage, when I replied that I would quit any 
palace in the world to see a mountain of unhewn marble in the 
Alps or Apennines. 

You may remember after a few days you were satiated 
with statues, frescoes, churches, and galleries. The sweetest 
souvenir which was left to you, was that of the cold and limpid 
waters of a fountain where you bathed your heated and weary 
brow in a garden in Genoa. The creations of art speak to the 
intellect alone, but the spectacle of nature appeals to every 
faculty. It influences us through every pore, as well as through 
every idea. To the entirely intellectual pleasure of admiration 
the aspect of the country adds a purely sensual enjoyment. 

The freshness of the fountains, the perfume of plants, the 
harmony of the winds, circulates through every nerve, whilsfthe 
brilliancy of colours and the beauty of outlines insinuate them- 
selves into the imagination. This feeling of pleasure and grati- 
fication is appreciable by every organization, even the com- 
monest animals feel it to a certain degree. But to an elevated 
mind it affords but a transitory pleasure, an agreeable repose 
after the more energetic functions of the intellect. To great 
minds, the entire universe is necessary ; the works of God, and 
the works of man. The fountain of pure water invites and charms 
you, but only for an instant do you repose there. You must ex- 
haust Michael Angelo and Raphael before you linger again on 
the way-side ; and when you have washed off the dust of the 
journey in the waters of the spring, you pass on saying, " Let 
us see what more there is under the sun." 

To minds so mediocre and idle as my own, the side of a hedge 
would suffice to sleep away my life, if this rough and barren 
journey might be slept or dreamt away. But even then, for me 
the fosse must be just like this one of Bassano ; that is to say, 
it must be at least one hundred feet above a delicious valley, and 
every morning must bring its breakfast on a grassy slope covered 
with primroses, with excellent coffee, mountain butter, and ani- 
seed bread. 

To such a breakfast I invite you, when you have time to wish 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 23 

for repose. When that time comes, every thing will be known 
to you ; life will have no more secrets for you. Your hair will 
be slightly grey, mine entirely so ; but the valley of Bassano 
will be just as lovely, the Alpine snows as pure ; and our friend- 
ship ? I trust in your heart, and I answer for my own. . . . 

The country was not yet in all its splendour, the meadows were 
still only a yellowish green, and the leaves as yet were only 
budding on the trees. But the peach and almond trees in flower 
mingled their white and rosy garlands with the sombre masses 
of the cypress trees. 

In the midst of this immense garden, the Brenta flows rapidly 
and silently over its sandy bed, between banks covered with 
pebbles and rocky fragments, torn from the bosom of the Alps, 
with which it furrows the plain in its days of anger. A half 
circle of fertile hills covered with those long vine branches which 
suspend themselves from every tree in Venetia, were the imme- 
diate border of the picture, and the snowy mountains, sparkling 
in the sun's first rays, formed a second immense frame-work 
which rose like a silver fringe into the deep blue of the at* 
mosphere. 

" I wish you to observe," said the doctor to me, " that your 
coffee is getting cold, and the vetturino is waiting for us." 

" Now doctor," said I, "do you really believe I am going back 
to Venice with you ?" 

" The Devil?" said he, with a thoughtful air. 
" What have you to say ?" said I. " You have brought me 
here to see the Alps, apparently ; and when I am actually at 
their foot, you fancy that I am going to return to your marshy 
city?" 

"Bah! I have been up the Alps more than twenty times, " 
said the doctor. 

" It is not exactly the same pleasure for me to know that you 
have done it as to do it myself," replied I. 

" Besides," continued he without listening to me, " do you know 
that in my time I have been a celebrated chamois hunter? Look! 
do you see that gap up there, and that peak down there ? Ima- 
gine to yourself that one day. ..." 

b 2 



24 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

" Basta, Basta, doctor, you can tell me all that, some evening 
at Venice when we are smoking a gigantic pipe under the tents 
of the square of St. Mark with your friends the Turks. They 
are people far too grave to interrupt a narrator, whatever mon- 
strous impertinence he may utter, and there is no danger that they 
will give the least sign of impatience or incredulity before the end 
of the recital, were it even to endure for three days and nights. 
As for to-day, I intend to follow your example and mount to 
that peak up there, and descend by that breach down there. . " 
" You !" said the doctor, throwing a contemptuous glance 
upon my insignificant person. 

And then, laying his hand upon the table, one half of which it 
covered, he looked at it complacently, smiled and drew himself 
up with a magnificent air. 

" The light troops go through the campaign quite as well as 
the cuirassiers," said I, rather piqued; "and as for climbing 
rocks, the smallest kid is more agile than the strongest horse." 

U I must observe to you," said my companion, "that you are 
ill, and that I have given my word to take you back to Venice 
alive or dead." 

" I know very well that as my doctor you arrogate to your- 
self the power of life and death over me ; but it is my whim, 
doctor ! I have taken it into my head to live for five or six days 
longer." 

" You really have not common sense," said he. " On one hand 
I have given my word to bring you back to Venice, and on the 
other hand I have given my word of honour to be there to- 
morrow morning. Will you oblige me to violate one of my 
two engagements ?" 

" Certainly, doctor, I will do so." 

He gave a deep sigh, and after a moment's reflection, said : 
" I have observed that little men are always endowed with 
great moral strength, or at least provided with an immense 
amount of obstinacy." 

* And is it in virtue of this learned observation," cried I, 
leaping from the balcony to the esplanade, " that you will leave 
me my liberty, most amiable doctor ?" 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 25 

" You make me compromise my conscience :" said he, leaning 
over the balcony. " I have promised to bring you back to Venice, 
but I did not engage for any particular day." 

" Exactly so, dear doctor. I might not return to Venice for a 
twelvemonth, and provided we make our entree together by the 
canal of the Giudecca " 

" Are you mocking me r" cried he. 

" Exactly so, doctor ;" said I. And then we had a terrible 
quarrel, which ended by mutual concessions. He consented to 
leave me there, and I promised to return to Venice before the 
end of the week. 

" Be at Mestri on Saturday evening," said the doctor, " and I 
will meet you with Catullo and the gondola." 

" I will be there, doctor, I promise you." 

" Swear it to me by our best friend, by him who was still 
here a few days ago to make you reasonable." 

" I swear it by him," I replied, and you may believe it to be 
a sacred promise. " Adieu, doctor." 

He pressed my fingers in his large red hand, till they yielded 
like reeds. Tears streamed silently down his cheeks. Then 
shrugging his shoulders, he flung back my hand, exclaiming, 
"Go to the devil !" When he had walked off about ten steps, 
he turned round and called out, " Remember to have the heels 
of your boots roughed, before venturing on the snow. Do not 
go to sleep too near the rocks ; remember there are many vipers 
hereabouts. Do not drink at every spring indiscriminately with- 
out assuring yourself of the purity of the water, recollect that 
there are very injurious veins in these mountains. You may 
trust yourself to any mountaineer who speaks the true dialect, 
but if any tramper asks alms in a foreign language, or with a 
suspicious accent, put not your hand into your pocket, exchange 
not a word with him. Pass on your way, but keep an eye on 
his stick." 

" Is that all, doctor r" 

"Be sure I never omit anything really useful," said he impa- 
tiently, " and that no one knows better than myself what is best 
to be done or left undone on a journey." 

" Ciao egregio dottore" said I smiling. 



26 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

"Your servant," replied he abruptly, pulling his hat down 
over his brows. 

if 4» ^f 4* ^fr 4 s ♦ 

I must confess that I am one of those who would willingly 
break their necks through mere bravado, and that no schoolboy 
is vainer than I am of his courage and agility. This is owing 
to my small stature, and the desire felt by all little men to do 
everything which a strong man can do. However, you may 
believe me when I tell you, that never had I less dreamt of 
making what we call an expedition. In my days of gaiety, in 
those days now so rare, when like Kreissler, I would willingly 
have gone out with one hat perched upon another. I might 
have risked the most graceful steps even on the edge of a preci- 
pice, but in my days of spleen, I walk calmly in the middle of 
the smooth highway, and no longer jest with abysses. I know 
too well that in those days, even the inopportune buzzing of an 
insect in my ear, or the impertinent titillation of a hair upon my 
cheek, would suffice to transport me with anger and despair and 
make me throw myself at once into the lake. Therefore the whole 
of this morning, I walked calmly along the road to Trent, remount- 
ing the course of the Brenta. This gorge is peopled with hamlets 
on either bank of the river, and little villas scattered over the 
sides of the mountains. All the lower part of the valley is care- 
fully cultivated. Higher up, immense pasture grounds extend 
themselves, of which nature herself takes charge. Then a ter- 
race of arid rocks rises towards the clouds, and the snow lies on 
their summits like a mantle. 

The snows were not yet dissolved. The Brenta still ran peace- 
fully in its narrow bed. Its water which had been troubled and 
poisoned for four years, by the dissolving of a rock, had reco- 
vered all its limpidity. Troops of children and lambs were 
playing indiscriminately on its borders, under the shade of flower- 
ing cherry trees. This season is delightful for travelling here. 
The country is a continuous orchard, and if vegetation is not in 
all its luxury, if verdure is wanting to the picture, yet the snow 
in compensation covers it with a dazzling halo, and one may 
walk the whole day between hedges of hawthorn and wild plum 
trees without meeting a single Englishman. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 27 

I should have been delighted to go on to the Tyrolese Alps. 
I cannot think why I have always fancied them so beautiful ; but 
it is certain that in rny imagination they have always existed as 
one of those points on the globe, towards which I am borne by 
an undetinable sympathy. Must I believe with you that destiny 
summons us imperiously towards those spots where some moral 
crisis is to operate within us ? I cannot think that fatality has so 
great a part in my life. I believe in a special providence for 
men of great genius or virtue, but what can God have to accom- 
plish by me r When we were together, I believed in fate like a 
true Mussulman. I attributed all the evil or good which befell 
us to the parental care or the mysterious foresight of God to- 
wards you. I saw myself forced to such or such use of my will, 
as an instrument destined to excite you to action. I was one of 
the wheels of your life, and sometimes I felt the hand of God 
impressing my direction upon me. Now that this hand sepa- 
rates us, I feel myself useless and abandoned. Like a rock 
torn from a mountain, I am impelled by chance, and the acci- 
dents of the route decide my direction. This stone embarrassed 
the course of destiny. His breath swept it from its place, what 
imports it to him where it falls ? 

****** 

I believe really that my old affection for the Tyrol hangs 

upon two slight remembrances : one that of a song which 

seemed to me very beautiful as a child, and which commenced 

thus : 

" Towards the mountains of Tyrol pursuing the chamois, 
The hoary-headed Engelwald has journeyed o'er the snow ;" 

and the other that of a young lady with whom I travelled one 
night, ten years ago, from. . . . to. . . . The diligence had been broken 
in going down a hill. There was a horrible frost, and a magnifi- 
cent moonlight. I was in a frame of mind at once ecstatic and 
ridiculous. I should have preferred being alone, but politeness 
obliged me to offer my arm to my fellow traveller. It was im- 
possible to think of any thing but the moonlight, the river run- 
ning in cascades by the road side, and the meadows bathed in a 
silvery vapour. The toilette of the traveller was problematic. 
She spoke incorrect French with a German accent, and she spoke 



28 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

but seldom. I had therefore no clue to her station or tastes. 
Except indeed that a few rather knowing remarks which she had 
made at the table-tf hote upon the quality of an almond cream, 
had made me fancy that this discreet and judicious person 
might be a housekeeper in some rich family. I thought for 
a long time, what I could say that would be agreeable, and a 
quarter of an hour's incredible efforts, at length delivered me of, 
" Is it not true, mademoiselle, that this is an enchanting situ- 
ation ?" She smiled, and slightly shrugged her shoulders. I 
imagined that from the platitude of my expression she took 
me for a commercial traveller, and I was rather mortified ; but 
she said in a melancholy tone, and after a moment's silence : 

" Ah ! monsieur, you have never seen the mountains of the 
Tyrol !" 

" Are you from Tyrol ?" cried I. " Ah ! I once knew a 
song about Tyrol which has often made me dream with my 
eyes open. It is a very beautiful country, then ? I do not 
know why it has always lodged itself in a corner of my brain. 
Be kind enough to describe it a little to me." 

" I am from Tyrol," said she in a sad sweet voice, " but excuse 
me, I cannot talk about it." 

She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and spoke not a single 
word during the rest of the journey. As for me, I respected her 
silence religiously, and did not even feel a desire to hear more. 
This love of country, expressed in a word, by a refusal to speak of 
it, by tears so quickly dried, seemed deeper and more eloquent 
than a book. I saw an entire romance, a whole poem in the sadness 
of this silent stranger. And then this Tyrol, so delicately, so 
tenderly regretted, appeared to me like an enchanted land. 
When seated again in the diligence I. closed my eyes that I 
might no longer see the very landscape I had just been admiring, 
and which now inspired me with all the disdain which one feels 
for reality at twenty. Then passed before me, as in an immense 
panorama, the lakes, and verdant mountains, the pastures, the 
alpine forests, the flocks and torrents of the Tyrol. I heard for 
the first time those songs, at once so joyous, yet so melancholy, 
which seem made for echoes to repeat. Since then I have often 
enjoyed delightful wanderings in this land of fancy, borne 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 29 

towards it on trie wings of Beethoven's pastoral symphonies. 
Ah ! what sleep 1 have had there, on odoriferous herbage, what 
lovely flowers I have gathered, what happy troops of shepherds 
have passed me laughing and dancing ! what austere solitudes I 
have found there in which to worship God ! What distances I 
have travelled through these mountains, during two or three mo- 
dulations of the orchestra. 

I seated myself on a rock a little higher than the road. Night 
was slowly falling on the hills. In the depth of the valley, fol- 
lowing the course of the torrent, my eyes distinguished a range 
of mountains confusedly piled one behind the other. These pale 
and lingering phantoms which were lost in the evening mists ; — 
these were " the Tyrol." From those distant summits, I said to 
myself, arise my golden dreams. They have flown towards 
me like a flock of wandering birds ; they came to seek me when 
a country child, I led my goats to pasture, chanting the romance 
of Eugelwald along the footpaths of the Vallee Noire. They 
hovered over me during a pale night of winter, when I had 
just accomplished a mysterious pilgrimage after other lost allu- < 
sions and other climes to which I may never return. They 
have transformed themselves into violins and hautboys in the 
hands of Brod and Urhan, though it was in Paris, though one 
was obliged to be in full dress, and light the lamps even at mid- 
day to hear them. They sang so well that it sufficed to shut 
one's eyes, for the hall of the Conservatoire to become an Alpine 
Valley, and Habeneck himself, bow in hand, became a chamois 
hunter, the hoary headed Engelwald himself, — or some other. 
Beautiful dreams of pilgrimage and solitude, wandering doves 
who refreshed my brow by the breezes of your wings, you have 
returned to your enchanted home and await me there. Behold 
me, ready to reach you, to grasp you ! Will you escape from me, 
like all my other dreams ? When I advance my hand to caress 
you, will you again fly far from me, oh, wild friends of mine ? — 
Will you not wing your way to some inaccessible summit where 
my desires will follow you in vain ? — 

* if •& # •%■ # 

During the daytime, and under a radiant sun, I had snatched 
a few hours repose. In order to avoid the dirty inns, I had 
arranged to journey onwards during the coolness of night, and 



30 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

to sleep in the open air, during the day. The night was less 
calm than I had hoped for. The sky was covered with clouds 
and the wind was rising. But the route was so well defined, 
that I could walk without any difficulty in the midst of dark- 
ness. The mountains reared themselves on my right and on my 
left, like dusky giants. The wind lost itself amongst them, and 
roamed over their summits with long and melancholy tones. 
The fruit trees violently shaken covered me with their balmy 
flowers. Nature was sad and veiled her face, but was full of 
perfumes and wild harmonies. Some rain-drops warned me to 
seek the shelter of a grove of olive-trees situated a little distance 
from the high road ; and there I waited for the end of the storm. 
In about an hour the wind had fallen, and the sky above me was 
one long line of azure, strangely varied by the broken outline of 
the two walls of granite which were its boundaries on either 
side. It was the same coup-d'ceil which we found in miniature at 
Venice, when we wandered at evening in those dark and narrow 
streets from whence we could perceive the nigbt, extended over 
us like a light azure scarf sown with silver spangles. 

The murmur of the Brenta, the last moaning of the wind 
through the heavy foliage of the olive trees, the rain-drops 
falling from the* branches with a sound which resembled kisses, 
altogether caused an indefinable sense of sadness and tenderness 
to float through the air, and breathe from all the vegetation. I 
thought of Christ's watch in the garden of Olives, and I remem- 
bered that we had talked a whole evening on this canto of the 
divine poem. A melancholy evening was that ; — one of those 
long watchings when we have drained together the cup of bitter- 
ness. And thou, also, thou hast suffered an inexorable martyr- 
dom ; thou, also hast been nailed on a cross. Hadst thou some 
great crime to atone for, by offering thyself as a victim on the 
altar of grief? what hadst thou done to be thus threatened and 
chastised ? can guilt exist at thy age ? does one even know right 
or wrong ? Thou knewest that thou wert young, thou didst 
believe that life and pleasure were one and the same. Thou 
didst weary thyself by universal enjoyment, hurried and without 
reflection. Unmindful of thy own greatness or grandeur, thou 
didst allow thy life to be the sport of passions which must waste 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 31 

and destroy it ; — as other men have the right to do. Thou didst 
arrogate this right over thyself, forgottest that thou wast one of 
those who do not belong to themselves. Thou didst wish to 
live for thyself alone, and to immolate thy glory through con- 
tempt for all human things. Thou didst throw into the abyss 
all the precious stones of the crown which God had placed upon 
thy brow ; — strength, beauty, genius, and even the purity of thy 
youth, which thou didst tread under thy feet, oh child of pride ! 
What love of destruction burnt then within thee ? what hadst 
thou against heaven which made thee disdain its most magnificent 
gifts ? Did the spirit of God reveal himself to thee with features 
too severe ? The angel of poetry who beams on his right 
hand bent over thy cradle to kiss thy brow, but thou wert 
alarmed doubtless by seeing the giant so near thee with his flaming 
wings. Thine eyes could not sustain the brightness of his face, 
and thou didst flee in order to escape him. Scarcely strong 
enough to walk alone, thou didst wish to tempt all the dangers 
of life, and to embrace with ardour all its realities, demanding 
from them asylum and protection against the terrors of thy sub- 
lime and terrible vision. Like Jacob thou didst wrestle with it, 
and like him thou wast overcome. In the midst of the fiery 
pleasures where thou vainly soughtest thy refuge, the mysterious 
spirit came to seize thee and reclaim thee. Fate willed that 
thou shouldest be a poet, and a poet thou wast in despite of thy- 
self. In vain didst thou abjure the worship of virtue, thou 
wouldst have been the most beautiful of her young levites ; thou 
wouldst have ministered to her altars chanting the most di- 
vine canticles upon a golden lyre ; and the white vestments of 
modesty would have clothed thy fragile frame with a sweeter 
grace than the cap and bells of Folly. But thou never forgottest 
the divine emotions of this primitive faith. Thou didst return 
to her from the depths of corruption, and thy song, commenced 
in blasphemy, became in spite of thyself, an outpouring of enthu- 
siasm and love. Those who listened regarded each other with 
astonishment. " Who then is this," said they, " and in what 
language does he celebrate our joyous rites ? We believed 
him one of us, but he is a fugitive from some other religion, an 
exile from some other world, more melancholy, yet more happy. 



32 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

He seeks us, he sits at our board, but intoxication does not yield 
to him the same illusions as to us. How is it that from time to 
time a cloud passes over his brow, and pallor overspreads his 
face r Of what does he dream ? of what does he speak ? What 
strange words are those which hover on his lips, at every mo- 
ment, like remembrances of another life ? Why do virgins, love, 
angels, pass before him so unceasingly in his dreams and in his 
verses ? Does he mock himself or us ? Is it his God or ours 
whom he despises and betrays }" And thou, thou continuedst 
thy sublime and yet fantastic song, now cynical and fiery as an 
antique ode, now chaste and tender as an infant's prayer. Lying 
on our earthly roses, thou dreamedst of the roses of Eden which 
never fade, and breathing the passing perfume of thy pleasures, 
thou spokest of the eternal incense kept alive by angels on the 
steps of God's throne. Hadst thou then breathed this incense ? 
Hadst thou then gathered these immortal roses ? Hadst thou 
then retained vague but delicious recollections of this country of 
the poets, which prevented thy being satisfied with thy fleeting 
pleasures here below ? 

Suspended between earth and heaven, eager for the one, 
curious about the other, disdainful of glory, dreading annihilation, 
uncertain, tormented, changeable, in the midst of men thou wert 
alone, thou didst fly from solitude, and found it everywhere. 
The power of thine own soul fatigued thee. Thy thoughts were 
too immense, thy desires too vast, thy feeble frame bent under 
the weight of thine own genius. Thou didst seek in the incom- 
plete voluptuousness of earth forgetfulness of those unattainable 
blessings thou hadst had a glimpse of from afar. But when 
fatigue had exhausted thy body, thy soul awoke more active, 
and thy longing greater. Thou didst quit the embraces of thy 
wanton mistresses to sigh before Raphael's Madonnas. " Who 
then," said a pious and tender dreamer of thee, " is this young 
man who feels such inquietude as to the purity of marble statues ?" 

Like the mountain torrent I hear roaring in the darkness, 
thou didst leave thy source mor6 pure, more clear than crystal, 
and thy first waters reflected only the unsullied whiteness of the 
surrounding snows. But fearful, doubtless, of the silence of 
solitude, thou didst burst forth on thy terrible descent; thou hast 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 33 

precipitated thyself amongst terrible shoals, and from the depths of 
the abyss thy voice raised itself like the roaring of a fierce and 
savage joy. 

From time to time thou didst calm thyself in a peaceful lake, 
happy to repose in its limpid waters, and reflect the purity of 
heaven. Enamoured of each star which sparkled on thy bosom, 
thou didst address to it a melancholy farewell when it quitted the 
horizon, 

Over our grassy slopes, linger awhile above, 

Quit not the heavens so soon, oh beaming star of love ! 

But soon, weary of inaction, thou didst pursue thy breathless 
course among the rocks, thou didst wrestle with them, and when 
thou hadst overcome, thou wentest on thy way with a song of 
triumph, forgetting that they encumbered thee in their fall, and 
left profound wounds upon thy bosom. 

At last friendship dawned upon thy haughty and solitary heart. 
Thou deignedst to believe in another than thyself, proud and un- 
happy one ! In his heart, thou sought est calm and confidence. 
The torrent calmed itself, and slept under a tranquil heaven. But 
in its waters were amassed so many fragments torn from its banks 
that it could scarcely clear its way. Like the torrent of the Brenta 
it was troubled for a long time, and scattered sterile sands and 
sharp rocks over the veiy valley which adorned it with flowers 
and shade. In like manner was the new life thou didst endeavour 
to live tormented and agitated. Thus did the remembrance of the 
turpitudes thou hadst seen come to poison, by arid doubts and bit- 
ter thoughts, the pure enjoyments of thy soul, still suspicious and 
fearful. 

Thus did thy frame, fatigued and weakened like thy heart, yield 
to the remembrance of its former weariness, and like a lily bowed 
itself to die. God, displeased at thy rebellion and pride, struck thee 
with his angry hand on thy brow ; and in an instant thy ideas be- 
came confused, and thy reason abandoned thee. The divine har- 
mony which had once been established in thy brain was overturned. 
Memory, discernment, all the noble faculties of intellect, so acute 
in thee, were troubled and effaced like the clouds scattered by the 
wi;id. Thou didst raise thyself up in thy bed, exclaiming : — 



34 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

" Where am I, oh ! my friends, and why have ye buried me alive 
in the tomb ?" 

One sentiment in thy soul survived all others ; — Will, but a blind, 
disordered will, which bounded like an unbridled horse over the 
plain, without any definite aim. A devouring anxiety spurred 
thee on, thou didst repulse the control of thy friend, thou didst 
desire to dart forward, to dart away. A fearful strength impelled 
thee. " Leave me my liberty,' ' thou didst cry, " let me flee, do 
you not see that I live and am young ?" Where then didst 
thou wish to go ? What visions passed over thee in the vagueness 
of thy delirium ? What heavenly phantoms invited thee to a 
better life ? What secrets, impenetrable to human reason hast 
thou surprised even in the exaltation of madness ? Dost thou 
know now ? Tell me. Thou hast suffered the sufferings of death ; 
thou hast seen the grave open to receive thee; thou hast felt 
the cold air of the sepulchre, and thou hast cried out : — " Save me, 
save me from this deathlike earth !" 

Hast thou seen nothing else ? When, like Hamlet, thou wert 
persuing the traces of an invisible being, where didst thou think 
thv refuge was ? from what mysterious power didst thou demand 
help against the horrors of death ? Tell me, tell me, that I may 
invoke it in thy days of suffering, and that I may call it to thy aid 
in thy agonies. It has saved thee once, this unknown power, it 
has torn thee from the shroud already infolding thee. Tell me 
how to worship it, and by what sacrifices it may be propitiated. 
Is it a gloomy divinity who demands the blood of those who adore 
it as a holocaust ? Tell me in what temple or cavern is its altar 
raised. I will go there to offer up my heart, when thine is suffering ; 
I wil/ offer up my life when thine is menaced 

The only power in which I believe is that of a just, severe, but 
paternal God. It is he who inflicted all the evils of human nature 
upon us ; but, who, in compensation, also revealed the hopes of a 
future life. It is the same Providence thou didst so often misun- 
derstand, but to whom the deep emotions of thy joys and griefs 
brought thee back again. It is now appeased, my prayers have 
been heard, thou art given back to my friendship ; it is for me to 
bless and give thanks to God. If his goodness towards thee has 



LETTERS OF A* TRAVELLER. 35 

made thee contract a debt of gratitude, it is I who charge myself 
with its fulfilment ^ here, in the silence of night, in the solitude of 
these mountains, in the most beautiful temple which can be opened 
to human footsteps. Listen, Listen, oh God, so good, so terrible ! 
It is false that thou hast not time to hear the prayer of man, thou 
hast even time to send the morning dew to every blade of grass ! 
Thou takest care of all thy works with infinite solicitude ; how 
then shouldest thou forget the heart of man, the noblest, the least 
understood of thy works ? Listen, then, to one who blesses thee 
in this desert, and who to-day, as always, offers thee his existence, 
and sighs for the day in which thou wilt deign to accept it. I am 
no greedy supplicant, wearying thy ear with desires for this world ; 
but a resigned and solitary heart, thanking thee for the good and 
evil thou hast bestowed. 



It was this which obliged me to return towards Lombardy, and 
defer the Tyrol till the next week. I arrived at Oliero towards 
four o'clock in the afternoon, after walking sixteen miles in ten 
hours, which, for an individual of my stature, was rather a long 
day's work. I had still some fever, and felt a burning heat in my 
head. I lay down upon the turf before the grotto, and fell asleep. 
But the barking of a great black dog, whom I had some difficulty 
in reducing to reason, soon awakened me. The sun had sunk 
behind the mountain summits, the atmosphere was mild and sweets 
The heavens, glowing with the richest colouring, tinted the snow 
with a rosy light. This hour's sleep had done me extreme service, 
my feet were no longer swelled, and my head was free from pain. 
I began to examine the spot I was in, it was a terrestrial paradise, 
an assemblage of the most graceful and yet imposing natural beau- 
ties. We shall go there together ; — let me hope so. 

When I had gone all over this enchanted place with the joy of 
a conqueror, I returned to sit down where I had been sleeping, to 
enjoy the pleasure of my discovery. I had been two days wan- 
dering through these mountains without finding one of these sites 



perfectly to my taste which abound in the Pyrenees, but which 
rare in this part of the Alps. I had torn my hands and kne< 






36 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

climbing to solitudes which had all their own peculiar beauties, 
but not one the peculiar type which I wished for at this moment. 
The one seemed too wild to me, the other too countrified. <?Jn this 
one I felt too sad, in the next I felt the cold, the third wearied me. 
It is difficult to find exterior nature in harmony with one's spirit, 
generally the aspect of nature triumphs over one's disposition, and 
furnishes new impressions to the soul. But if the soul is sick and 
weary, it resists the influence of place and weather, and revolts 
against the action of anything foreign to its own suffering and is 
irritated at finding them in disunion with its present mood. 

I was thoroughly overcome with fatigue on arriving at Oliero, 
and perhaps from this cause quite disposed to be governed by my 
sensations. It is certain that even there I could not give myself 
up to that lazy contemplation which the least disturbance in our 
physical well-being so imperiously deranges. Imagine to yourself 
an angle of the mountain covered with flowering thickets, across 
which were pathways of sudden slope, and turfy lawns of gentle 
inclination covered with rhododendrons, periwinkle, and Easter 
daisies. Three grottoes, marvellous for beauty of form and colour, 
occupy the depths of the ravine. One of these served for a long 
time as a cavern to a band of assassins ; the other contains a small 
but gloomy lake, which one can cross in a boat, and over which hang 
the most beautiful stalactites. But it is one of those curiosities which 
unluckily have the bad habit of ministering to the useless and insup- 
portable profession of a tourist. Already I see arriving, in spite 
of the snow still covering the Alps, those insipid and monotonous 
faces which each summer brings, and who penetrate even into 
the most sacred solitudes ; the true curse of our generation, which 
has sworn to denature by its presence the physiognomy of all parts 
of the globe, and to poison all the enjoyments of solitary contem- 
plators by their restlessness and foolish questions. 

I returned to the third grotto ; it is the one which least attracts 
the attention of the curious, and yet it is the most beautiful. It 
offers, neither dramatic souvenirs nor mineralogical rarities. There 
is a spring sixty feet deep, sheltered by a vault of rocks opening 
upon the most lovely natural garden in the world. On each side 
are hillocks of a beautiful form and rich vegetation. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 37 

In front of the grotto, at the end of a perspective of flowers and 
pale verdure, thrown like an immense bouquet scattered by fairy 
hands flver the side of the mountains, there rises a sublime giant, 
a perpendicular rock, sculptured by the storms of ages into the 
form of a citadel flanked by its towers and bastions. This magic 
castle, lost in the clouds, crowns the first terrace of this fres ! i and 
lovely picture with a w T ild majesty. The contemplation of this 
awful peak from the depth of the grotto, on the border of the 
fountain, the feet carpeted by violets, between the subterranean 
freshness of the rock, and the warm atmosphere of the valley, was 
a happiness, a joy, of which I would willingly have deprived my- 
self to send it to you. 

Rocks were scattered in the water even to the middle of the 
grotto. I reached the last of them, and leaned over the crystal 
mirror, as transparent and still as a block of emerald. 

In its depth I saw a pale countenance whose calm frightened me — 
I tried to smile upon it, and it returned my smile with so much 
coldness and bitterness, that the tears came into my eyes, and I 
raised myself that I might see it no longer. I remained upon the 
rock, with folded arms. The cold gained upon me slowly. It 
seemed to me as though I also were becoming a petrifaction. 
There came into my memory I know not what fragment of an un- 
published book. " Thou also, old Jacques, thou also wert of pure 
and solid marble, and thou earnest from the hands of God, proud 
and spotless, and like a freshly carved statue, white from the studio, 
and mounted on its pedestal with a haughty air. But now behold 
thee, rusted and w T orn by time, like one of those decaving sym- 
bols which may still be seen in deserted gardens. Thou decoratest 
the desert, why seemest thou to be weary of solitude ? Thou 
findesc the winter rude and long. Thou pinest to become dust, 
and to raise no longer towards heaven the brow once so proud, 
now insulted by the wind, and covered by the damp with a 
gloomy moss which seems like a mourning veil. So many storms 
have darkened thy splendour that those who pass thee by chance 
know not whether thou art of alabaster or clay under thy mourning 
garments. Remain, remain in thy annihilatvjn, and count thy days 
no longer. Thou wilt endure yet a long time, thou miserable 
stone ! Once thou didst glory in being formed of a hard and im- 



38 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

penetrable material, now thou enviest the fate of the withered reed 
broken by the storm of a day. But frost cleaves even marble. 
The cold will destroy even thee ; — put thy trust therein." 

I left the grotto overcome with a fearful sadness, and threw, 
myself more weary than ever, down upon the spot where I had at 
first s]ept. But the heaven was so calm, the atmosphere so sooth- 
ing-, the valley so lovely, life circulated so youthfully, so vigorously 
through all their rich and spring-tide nature, that little by little I 
felt myself renewed also. The colours faded, and the indented 
contour of the mountains was softened in the vapour, as in a veil 
of bluish gauze. A last ray of sunset rested on the vault of the 
grotto, and threw a fringe of gold over the mosses and spleenwort 
with which it was covered. The wind waved the ivy festoons over 
my head, twenty feet in length. A nest of chirping robins was 
hanging in these branches, rocked by the breezes. The torrent 
which escaped from the cavern kissed the primroses growing on 
the banks. A swallow flew out of the grotto and took its way 
across the heavens. It is the first I have seen this year. She 
took' her glorious flight towards the great rock in the horizon ; 
but when she saw the snow, she returned like the dove to the ark, 
and buried herself in her retreat, to wait for the spring yet ano- 
ther day. 1 therefore prepared to seek a shelter for the night — 
but before quitting the grotto of Oliero, and the route of the Tyrol, 
before turning my face towards Venice, I tried to resume the 
thread of my emotions. 

But this was no help to me. I felt within myself a deplorable 
fatigue, and a strength even more deplorable ; no hope, no desire, 
a profound ennui ; the power to accept all good, or all' evil ; too 
much discouragement or indolence to seek or avoid anything ; a 
frame as strong to bear fatigue as that of a young bufTalo : a spirit, 
unquiet, sombre and seeking, united to an indolent taciturn character 
calm as the waters of this fountain which has not a ripple on its 
surface, and which is yet disturbed by a grain of sand. 

I know not why every reflection upon the future causes me such 
an intense disgust. I am obliged, when this occurs, to turn my 
thoughts upon certain phases of the past, and this soothes me. I 
thought of our friendship, and I felt remorse at having allowed 
so much bitterness to enter my poor heart. I recalled to myself the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 39 

joys and sufferings we had shared together. Both are so dear 
to me, that even their remembrances made me weep like a woman. 
As I covered my face with my hands, I inhaled the odour of the 
leaves of a sage plant, I had touched some hours previously. 
This little plant was now blooming on its native mountain some 
miles from me. I had reverenced it, I had carried nothing from it 
but its exquisite perfume. How was it that the scent remained 
with me ? How precious a thing is perfume, which robbing the 
plant from which it emanates of nothing, and yet attaching itself to 
the hands of a friend, follows him in his travels to charm his heart, 
and recall to his memory tbe beauty of the -flower he loved ! The 
perfume of the soul is memory. This is the most sensitive, the 
sweetest feeling of the heart, which detaches itself to embrace 
another heart, and follow it everywhere. The affection of an ab- 
sent friend is but a perfume, but how sweet, how consoling ! to 
the sick and weary heart it brings beneficent thoughts and cheering 
hopes. Fear not, oh thou ! who has left this balmy trace upon my 
route, fear not that I shall ever let thee be lost. I will lock it in 
my silent heart like a subtle essence in a sealed casket. None 
shall breathe it but myself, and I shall inhale it in my hours of 
sorrow to draw from it consolation and strength, dreams of the 

past, and hopes of the future. 

* # * # * 

I remember, that when I was a child, the huntsman used to 
bring to the house in winter time beautiful wood pigeons yet bleed- 
ing. Those yet alive were given to me, and I took charge of them. 
I lavished on them, the care and tenderness which a mother feels 
for her children, and I succeeded in cuiing some. But as they 
recovered their strength, they became melancholy and refused the 
beans, which during their suffering, they eat eagerly out of my 
hand. As soon as they could use their wings, they became agi- 
tated in their cage, and beat themselves against the bars. Had I 
not restored them to liberty, they would have died of fatigue and 
chagrin, and although I was as egotistic a child as ever existed, I 
accustomed myself to sacrifice the pleasure of possession to the 
pleasure of generosity.. The day when I carried any of my doves 
to the window was a time of deep emotion, of triumphant joy, and 

c 2 



40 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

invincible regret. I kissed it a thousand times. I entreated it to 
remember me, and to come back for the fresh beans of my garden. 
Then I half opened my hand, but only to close it again. Again I 
kissed it, my heart swelling, and my eyes full of tears. At last, 
after much regret and hesitation I placed it on the window ledge. 
It remained there some time immoveable, surprized and almost 
frightened at its happiness. At last it flew, with a cry of joy 
which went to my heart. I followed it with my eyes a long time, 
and when it disappeared behind the service trees of our garden, I 
began to weep bitterly, and my mother w T ould be anxious the 
whole day, at seeing my sorrowing and cast down appearance. 

When we quitted each other, I was proud and happy at seeing 
you restored to life, and I attributed the glory of it a little to my 
cares for you. I dreamed of happier days in store for you and a 
calmer life. I saw you revive again to youth, to affection, to glory. 
But when I had set you on shore, when I found myself alone in the 
gondola, dark as the tomb, I felt that my soul had fled with you ; 
and that the wind now sported only with a sick and disordered 
frame. A friend was waiting for me on the Piazzetta steps. 
" Courage," said he. " Yes/* replied I, " you said so also to me one 
night, when he lay dying in our arms, when we thought his 
last hour was come. Now he is saved, he is going back to his 
friends, his country, his mother, and his pleasures. This is well, 
but I know not whether, think of me as you may, I do not regret 
that dreadful night when his sick head was lying on your shoulder, 
and his cold hand in mine. He was there betwer 1 us, and he is 
there no longer. Whilst shrugging your shoulders, you yourself 
are weeping. You see your tears reason no better than I. He is 
gone, we wished it ; he is no longer here, and we are in despair." 
***** 

Before going to bed, I went to smoke my cigar upon the high 
road of Bassano. I went no farther from Oliero than a quarter of 
a league, and it was not yet night, but the road was silent and 
deserted as though it were midnight. Suddenly, I scarcely know 
how, I found mvself face to face with a personage much better 
dressed than myself. He had a blue frock coat, hussar boots, and 
a Hungarian cap, with a handsome silken tassel hanging on his 
shoulder. He stopped my way, and spoke to me in a dialect half 
Italian, hall' German. I imagined he was seeking some informa- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 4 1 

tion about the country, and showing him the white steeple which 
was outlined on the horizon, I contented myself with replying 
" Oliero." But he continued his speech in a complaining voice, 
and I thought he was demanding alms. It was impossible to offer 
so elegant a mendicant any thing less than a swanziger, and this 
was quite impossible to me, for very important reasons. At the 
same moment I remembered the doctor's warning, and I walked on 
my way. But whether he took me for a disguised financier, or 
whether my blue cotton blouse pleased him extremely, he continued 
to follow me about fifty steps, going on with his unintelligible dis- 
course, which seemed to me spoken with a horrible accent, and 
which did not please me at all. This gentleman had a good thick 
holly stick in his hand, and I had not even a honeysuckle branch. 
I remembered again the doctor's very words, " Keep your eye upon 
his stick ;" and yet I could scarcely see what good the exact know- 
ledge cf the danger I ran could do me. I came to the decision of 
thinking of something else, and began to whistle, repeating to myself 
that profoundly philosophical observation which you taught me, and 
which you advised me to make use of in all the great emotions of 
my life. " Music in the country is a very agreeable thing ; the har- 
monious chords of the harp,"&c. I threw a side glance around me, and 
saw my German turn upon his heel ; and as I had no wish to cultivate 
his acquaintance, I continued my way to Bassano, still whistling. 

I was devilishly frightened. I am naturally both reckless and 
cowardly ; this made my tutor say my character resembled that of 
a blackbird. I never believe in danger till I touch it, and forget 
it as soon as it is over. There is no bird more ready than I to fall 
twenty times into the trap where he has been taken before. I hover 
round it, and brave it with a levity which might be easily taken for 
courage; but when once in, I do not cut a better figure than anv 
one else. I own it without shame, because it does not seem to me 
that a man of about five feet is obliged to possess the stoicism of 
Milo of Crotona : and because I have seen some enormous fellows 
as feeble as myself in the presence of fear. 

I returned to Oliero, and found, by groping for it, the branch of 
juniper suspended from the door of my public-house. The first 
lace I perceived at the chimney corner was my German smoking 
a comfortable pipe, and watching with a most loving look the spit, 



42 LETTERS OF A TRAVLELER. 

upon which a quarter of lamb, which he had ordered for his supper, 
was roasting. He rose when he saw me, and offered me a seat 
near him. I was rather confused at the blunder I had made, in mis- 
taking so well dressed a person for a robber on the highway. Our 
supper was served at the same table ; he had his roast lamb, I my 
goat's cheese ; he the generous wine of Asolo, I the pure water 
from the torrent. After having eaten about three mouthfuls, 
whether he felt very little appetite, or i whether J was eating my 
bread in a peculiarly fascinating manner, I know not, but he asked 
me to share his repast, and I accepted it without ceremony. He 
spoke a kind of unintelligible Venetian dialect, and reproached me 
agreeably enough for refusing him a light for his pipe, when we met 
upon the road. I apologized in great confusion, and tried to laugh 
in my sleeve at my former fright; but, notwithstanding his politeness, 
and, perhaps, on account of his very politeness, this gentleman had a 
sort of rascally appearance about him which recalled V Auherge des 
Adrets, as though it had been but a league off; and the landlord, whilst 
lounging round the table, looked at us both alternately in a very cu- 
rious manner. When 1 climbed up to my garret, resolved to front all 
the dangers of this Italian cut -throat, I heard the good landlord 
saying to the waiter, " Keep your eye on that Tyrolese and the little 
foreigner (meaning me). Lock up the plate, and bring the keys of 
the linen to put under my pillow ; fasten the dog at the door of 
the hen-house, and call me at the least noise. " M Cristo, be easy/' 
replied the waiter, " I shall have the pitchfork by my bed, and 
per Dio santo, let him take care of himself, if he amuses himself by 
trying to leave before daylight." Forewarned is forearmed, and I 
slept tranquilly, protected against the Tyrolese scoundrel by this 
honest mountaineer, who imagined all the time he was protecting 
his master's house against me. 

When I awoke, the Tyrolese had long taken flight; and, not- 
withstanding the vigilance of the host, his waiter, and his dog, 
he had absconded without paying. There was some question as to 
considering me his accomplice, and making me pay his score. I 
compromised ; and as 1 had eaten with him, I paid for half the 
supper, and then set off to cross the mountain. 

The solitudes which I crossed this day were incredibly melan- 
choly. I walked rather at hazard, trying to keep as well as I could 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 43 

in the direction of Treviso, and not troubling myself about going 
over three times as much ground as was necessary, and, perhaps, 
passing the night under a juniper tree. I cho^e the most difficult 
and least-frequented paths. In some places, they led to the first 
snow regions ; and in others they plunged into arid denies, 
where the foot of man apparently had never penetrated. I love 
these wild, uninhabited places, belonging to no one, so difficult of 
access, and from whence it seems almost impossible to get out. I 
stopped in a kind of amphitheatre of rocks, to which not a building, 
not an animal, not even a plant, gave a geological physiognomy. 
It had a physiognomy of its own, terrible, austere, desolate, be- 
longing to no country in particular, and which might have been 
any other part of the world as well as Italy. I seated myself at the 
foot of a rock, and shutting my eyes, my fancy began to wander. 
In a quarter of an hour, I had made the tour of the world ; and 
when 1 roused myself from this feverish dose, I imagined that I 
was in America, in one of those eternal solitudes, where savage 
Nature has not yet been conquered by the hand of man. You can 
scarcely imagine what a hold this illusion had upon me ; I almost 
expected to see the boa untwist its coils among the withered reeds, 
and the howling of the wind seemed the voice of the panther wan- 
dering among the rocks. I crossed this desert, without meeting 
the least contretemps to spoil my dream ; but, at a turning in the 
mountain, I found a little niche hollowed in the rock, and its Ma- 
donna and the lamp, which the mountaineers illumine every even- 
ing, even in the most distant solitudes. At the foot of the altar, 
there was a bouquet of cultured flowers, evidently freshly gathered. 
This lamp, still alight ; these flowers of the valley, still fresh ; so 
deep in these sterile and uninhabited mountains, were the offerings 
of a worship more simple, more touching, than any thing of the 
sort I have ever seen. In general, these crosses and these Ma- 
donnas are placed in the desert, at a spot where any murder has 
been committed, or where any death has occurred from accident. 
Two steps from this Madonna was a precipice, which one must 
pass quite close in order to leave this defile; the lamp, at any 
rate, if not the protection of the Virgin, must be very useful to 
those who travel at night. 

A wild idea, the illusion of a moment, a dream which just tra- 



44 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

verses the brain suffices sometimes to unsettle the mind entirely, 
and carry along with it the joy or suffering of a whole day. This 
imaginary journey in America had, in five moments, unrolled an 
immense future before me, and when 1 awoke on a summit in the 
Alps, it seemed as though I were going to spurn the earth with 
my foot, and launch into immensity. The lovely plains in Lombardy, 
the Adriatic lying like a veil of mist in the horizon ; all this ap- 
peared to me like an exhausted conquest, a space already passed 
over. I imagined, that if I willed it I could be on the summit of 
the Andes to-morrow. The days of my past life were effaced and 
melted into one. Yesterday seemed to contain within itself thirty 
years of weariness ; to-day, this terrible word, which, in the grotto 
of Ohero had to my mind only represented the fearful torpor of the 
grave, was now obliterated from the book of my life. This de- 
tested strength, this mournful resistance to grief, which had made 
me so sad, now made itself felt, in activity and violence, mournful 
still, but proud as despair. The idea of an eternal solitude made 
me thrill with joy and impatience, as in former days a thought of 
love would have done, and I felt my will dart forward towards 
a new period in my destiny. " Thou art at this point then Y % said 

a voice within me " well then, go on, and learn." 

# * * * * 

AX, sunset I found myself at the very crest of a rock, the 
last of the Alps. At my feet lay Venetia, immense ; dazzling 
in light and extent. I had left the mountains, but at what 
point of my route ? Between the plain and the peak from which 
I was contemplating it, a lovely oval valley extended itself, on 
one side lying along the side of the Alps, and on the other elevated 
like a terrace above the plain, and protected against the sea winds 
by a rampart of feitile hills. Directly beneath me was a village 
scattered in most picturesque disorder. This poor hamlet is 
adorned by a vast marble temple quite new, brilliantly white, and 
placed in a proud position upon the brow of the mountain. 
I know not what idea of personification I attached to this 
monument. It looked as though it were contemplating and com- 
manding Italy, which lay spread before it like a map. 

A workman, who was cutting marble, told me that this church 
of Pagan form, was the work of Canova, and that the village of 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 45 

Possagno, situated at its foot, was the birthplace of this great 
sculptor of modern times. " Can ova was the son of a stone cutter/' 
added the mountaineer, " a poor workman like myself." 

How often must the young labourer who was to become Canova 
have seated himself upon this very rock, upon which there now 
rises this monument to his memory ! What looks must he have 
cast upon Italy, which has since crowned him so often ! upon this 
world, where he has exercised the simple royalty of his genius, 
beside the terrible royalty of Napoleon. Did he desire, did he 
hope for glory, did he even dream of it ? 

When he had skilfully cut a portion of the rock, did he foresee 
that from his hand, inured to rough labour, would proceed all the 
Gods of Olympus, and all the monarchs of the earth ? Could he 
divine the new race of kings who were just bursting forth to ask 
for immortality from his chisel ? When looking with the eyes of a 
young man, and perhaps of a lover upon the beautiful mountain 
maidens of his native place, did he dream of the princess Borghese 
naked before him ? 

The Valley of Possagno is in the form of a cradle, worthy of the 
man who issued from it. It is worthy of having served for more 
than one genius, and one feels that the sublimity of intellect is easily 
developed in so lovely a country, and so pure a sky. The purity 
of the water, the richness of the soil, the strength of the vegeta- 
tion, the beauty of the human race in this part of the Alps, and 
the magnificence of the distant views which the valley looks down 
upon, on all sides, seem expressly formed to cherish the highest 
faculties of the soul, and excite it to the most noble ambitions. 
This species of terrestrial paradise, where intellectual youth may 
blossom with all its spring vigour, this immense horizon which 
seems to call the steps and thoughts towards the future, do these 
not seem the two principal conditions for the development of a 
lofty destiny ? 

The life of Canova was fruitful and generous as the soil of his 
country. Sincere and simple as a true mountaineer, he always 
retained a tender love for the village and humble cottage where he 
was born. He had it modestly embellished, and came to rest 
there in the autumn from the labours of the year. 

He took pleasure in drawing the Herculean forms of the pea- 



46 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

sants, and the truly Greek heads of the young girls. The inhabi- 
tants of Possagno repeat proudly that the principal models for 
Canova' s rich collection of works, were chosen from their valley. 
Indeed, it is quite sufficient to pass through it, to find at every step 
the type of that cold beauty which characterizes the sculptor of 
the empire. The principal beauty of these mountaineers, and that 
which the marble cannot reproduce is the freshness of their colour- 
ing, and the transparence of their skin. To them the eternal me- 
taphor of lilies and roses may be applied. 

Their eyes are extremely limpid and of an uncertain shade, 
partaking both of a green and a blue tint, which is peculiar to the 
stone called aqua marine. Canova particularly admired the mor- 
bidezza of their fair and abundant masses of hair — which he ar- 
ranged himself, before copying, after the various manners of Grecian 
statuary. 

These girls have generally an expression of sweetness and naivete', 
which reproduced in finer features and more delicate forms, must 
have inspired Canova with his delicious head of Psyche. The men 
have colossal heads, very prominent brows, abundant fair hair, their 
eyes are at once large, bright, and bold, and the face short and 
square. Nothing profound and delicate in the physiognomy, but a 
frankness and courage which recall the expression of the antique 
statues of huntsmen. The temple of Canova is an exact copy of 
the Pantheon at Rome. It is of beautiful marble, of a white 
ground, crossed with red veins and shades, but already marked by 
the frost. Canova built this church in the philanthropic view of 
attracting a concourse of strangers and travellers to Possagno, and 
thus procuring a supplv of commerce and money to the poor inha- 
bitants of the mountain. He wished to make it a kind of 
museum of his works. The church was to have contained his 
productions on sacred subjects, and the upper galleries those on 
profane history. He died without being able to accomplish his 
project, and left a considerable sum to be dedicated to this 
end. But although his own brother the bishop Canova was 
charged with watching over these labours, a sordid economy or 
most unworthy bad faith, has presided over the execution of the 
sculptor's last wishes. Except the mere shell of marble upon 
which it was too late to speculate, they have miserably obeyed 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 47 

the order to fill it. Instead of the twelve colossal marble 
statues which were to occupy the niches in the cupola, there are 
twelve grotesque giants, which an otherwise skilful painter, they 
say, took pleasure in executing as an irony upon the sordid and 
vexatious spirit of the conductors of the works. Very little of 
Canova's sculpture decorates the interior of the monument. A 
few small bas-reliefs, but very pure and elegant in design, 
are incrusted round the chapels ; you saw them at the Aca- 
demy of the Fine Arts at Venice, and you noticed one with 
peculiar pleasure. You also saw the group of Christ at the 
sepulchre there, which is certainly one uf Canova's coldest 
thoughts. The bronze of this group is in the Temple of 
Possagno, and also the tomb where the ashes of the sculptor 
repose, in a Greek sarcophagus, very simple and very beautiful, 
executed after his own design. 

Another group of Christ in grave clothes, painted in oil, deco- 
rates the altar. Canova, the most modest of sculptors, had also 
a pretension to be a painter. He passed several years in retouch- 
ing this painting, happily the only offspring of his old age, and 
which from affection and respect to his memory, his heirs ought 
to keep preciously at home, and hidden from all eyes. 

$r •%■ •& "& * $ * 

I followed the road towards Asolo along a range of hills, 
covered with fig-trees ; I thus enjoyed the rich landscape of 
Venetia for many leagues, without being fatigued by its vast ex- 
tent, thanks to the variety of the fore-ground, which descends 
by inclined plains and ravines to the surface of the plain. 
Crystal rivulets circulate through and bound down these moun- 
tain gorges, whose colouring is bold without any harshness, and 
whose position changes at every turn of the road. It is the rich- 
est soil for the most delicious fruits, and the most healthy climate 
in Italy. At Asolo, a village seated like Possagno, at the side of 
the Alps, at the entrance of a valley not less beautiful, I found 
a mountaineer who was departing for Treviso, majestically seated 
on a car drawn by four she-asses. I begged of him for a small 
sum to give me a place amongst the kids he was taking to 
market, and I arrived at Treviso the next morning, after sleep- 
ing fraternally amongst these innocent animals, doomed to fall 



48 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

the next day under the butcher's knive. This thought inspired 
me with an invincible horror of their master, and I did not 
exchange a single word with him during the journey. 

I slept two hours at Treviso, and felt a little cold and fever ; 
at noon I found a vetturino who was setting off to Mestri, and he 
took me with him en lapin. I found Catullo's gondola at the en- 
trance of the canal. The doctor sitting on the poop was bandy- 
ing Venetian jests with this pearl of gondoliers. On our friend's 
countenance there beamed a ray of unusual joy. " What has 
happened," said I, " have you received an inheritance ? are you 
appointed physician to your uncle ?" 

He assumed a mysterious air, and made me a sign to sit down 
by him. Then he took out of his pocket a letter with the 
Geneva postmark. 

After reading it, I turned away to conceal my tears. But 
when I looked round, I found the doctor reading it in his turn. 

" Do not disturb yourself," said I. He paid no attention to 
me, and continued to read it. After he had finished, he carried it 
to his lips with all the passionate vivacity of an Italian, and gave 
it me back saying as his only excuse, " / have read it.' 1 

We pressed each other's hands, and wept together. Then I 
asked him if he had received any money for me. 

He nodded affirmatively. 

" And when does your friend Zuzuf depart?" 

" The fifteenth of next month. '' 

" You must engage me a passage on his vessel, doctor." 

" Yes ? yes — And you will come back ?" said he. 

" Yes, I will come back." 

" And he also ?'* 

" And he also, I hope." 

" God is great !" said the doctor raising his eyes to heaven 
with an air at once simple and emphatic, " We shall see Zuzuf 
at the cafe this evening," added he, " meanwhile where will you 
lodge ?" 

" That matters little, my friend ; to-morrow I set off for the 
Tvrol " 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 49 



LETTER II. 



I have often told you of a dream, which I have dreamed very 
frequently, and which leaves upon my mind after waking an im- 
pression of happiness, and yet of melancholy too. 

At the beginning of the dream, I find myself seated on the banks 
of a wild and solitary river ; and a bark, full of friends, chanting 
most delightful airs, comes towards me, borne upon the flowing 
waters. They call upon my name, they hold out their arms to 
me, and I dash forward to join them in the vessel. They say 
we are going to (they name some unknown place,) let us hasten 
there. They lay aside their instruments, they leave off singing. 
Each one takes an oar. We land, but upon what enchanted 
shore is it that we land ? It is impossible for me to describe it ; 
but my eyes have seen it twenty times ; I know it well ; it must 
exist somewhere on this earth, or in one of those planets, the 
pale light of which you love to contemplate in the deep woods, 
when the moon is setting. We leap to the earth, and spring 
forward, running and singing, through the odoriferous herbage. 
But all suddenly disappears, and I awake. Often have I re- 
commenced this lovely dream, and never have 1 been able to 
go a step further. But what is stranger still, is, that the friends 
who please and attract me so much in this dream, I have never 
seen in this my actual life. When I wake, my imagination does 
not represent them to me, I forget their features, their names, 
their ages. I have a vague feeling that they are all young and 
beautiful ; both men and women are crowned with flowers, and 
their hair flows loosely on their shoulders. The bark is large 
and crowded. They are not divided into couples, they wander 
about without any peculiar choice among themselves, all seem- 
ing moved by an equal but an entirely divine love. Their voices, 
and their hymn^ are not of this world. Every time this dream 



50 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

recurs, the memory of all these former dreams returns, but it is 
only distinct for a moment ; my awaking troubles and effaces it. 
As soon as the bark appears upon the waters, I think of 
nothing else. I am not expecting it, I am sad ; and the occu- 
pation it most frequently finds me engaged in, is that of bathing 
my feet in the rippling waves. But this endeavour is always 
fruitless. As soon as I make a step upon the strand, I sink 
into the shifting soil again, and then I always suffer from a feel- 
ing of the most puerile distress. Then, the bark appears in 
the distance, and I hear the hymns and voices vaguely. As 
they approach I recognise the accents already so dear to me. 
Sometimes even, after awaking, I remember some of these 
fragmentary verses, but they are merely unconnected phrases, 
and present no definite idea to the mind. If one were to 
write a commentary on them, it would be the most fantastic 
poem the age had ever produced. But I should not think 
of doing so even for a moment ; I should be in despair if by 
composing anything upon my dream, I should alter it, or add 
anything to the vague recollection it leaves upon my memory. 
1 am most anxiously wishing to know whether the dream has 
any prophetic sense, any revelation for the future, either for 
this life, or for the life to come. And yet I should not like 
to have it explained to me, that would destroy the pleasure 
I find in the search for its solution. 

Who may these unknown friends be, who come to call me 
in my sleep, and lead me joyously forth towards a country 
of chimeras ? How is it that I can never penetrate into the 
enchanted vistas that I perceive from the shore ? How is it 
that my memory retains so well the aspect of the place from 
whence T depart, and that to which I go, and yet it is* power- 
less to recall the features or the names of the friends who 
lead me thither. Why, when day-break comes, can I no 
longer raise the veil which conceals them from me ? Are 
they the spirits of the departed who appear to me ? Are they 
the spectres of those I no longer love ? Are they the undefined 
forms, in which my heart is yet to reap new sympathies ? Are 
they only colours dashed at random on the palette by my 
imagination still at work even midst the repose of night ? 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 5) 

Often I have told you, when awaking in the morning, fresh 
from my unknown island, still pale from emotion and regret, that 
nothing in this life can be compared to the affection with which 
these mysterious beings inspire me, and the joy with which I 
meet them again. So powerful are these feelings, that I feel the 
physical impression long after I awake, and for the whole day 
I cannot think of them without a palpitation of the heart. 
They seem to me so good, so beautiful, so pure. I recall not 
their features, but their physiognomy, their smile, the tone of 
their voices. They are so happy, and they invite me with so much 
tenderness to share their happiness ! But their happiness ? what 
may it be ? 

I even remember some of their words. " Come," they say to 
me, " "What art thou doing on this lonely shore ; come and sing 
with us, come and drink from our cup. Here are flowers, 
here are instruments of music." And they offer me a harp of 
a form which I have never seen before, and yet my fingers 
seem accustomed to it; I make it yield divine harmony, and 
they listen to me with tender pleasure. " Oh ! friends ! beloved 
friends,'' I say to them. " whence do you come, and why have you 
abandoned me so long ?'' " It is thou" they answer," who unceas- 
ingly leavest us. What hast thou done, where hast thou been 
since we saw thee ? How art thou grown old and weary, and how 
are thy feet covered with dust ! Come and rest and regain youth 
with us. Come to ***** where the moss is like a velvet 
carpet, and one may walk barefooted." But nc, it is not thus 
they speak. They utter lovely words, but I cannot recall them 
well enough to render justice to their beauty. For myself, I 
feel astonished that I could ever live apart from them, and it is 
my actual life which then seems to me like a half effaced dream. 
I ask of them where they have been so long r " How is it," I de- 
mand, " that I have lived with other beings, have dwelt with other 
friends ? In what inaccessible world had you retired ? and how 
is it that the memory of our love has been forgotten ? Why 
have you not followed me into a world where I have suffered 
so much? how is it I never thought of seeking for your" 
" It is because we are not of that world, because we never enter 
it," reply they smilingly. " Come here, come with us." " Yes, for 



52 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

ever, and for ever," I answer ; " do not abandon me, oh ! my be- 
loved, let me not be carried away by the waves which always 
bear me far from you ; let me not set my foot upon the fatal 
quicksands into which I sink until your forms disappear from be- 
fore my sight ; until I find myself again in another existence 
with other friends, whose love is not your love." " Foolish and 
ungrateful as thou art," they say, with tender mockery ; "thou art 
always seeking to return there, and when thou leavestthat world, 
thou dost not recognise us," " Yes ! I recognise you entirely, and 
even now it seems to me, I have never quitted you. Behold 
you are always young and always happy." Then, 1 recall their 
names, and they embrace me, giving me a name, which I do not 
remember, and which is not that I bear in the land of the 
living. 

This apparition of a bark full of friends which bears me to- 
wards a land of happiness has floated in my mind since my ear- 
liest youth. I well remember in my childhood, when about five 
or six years old, in my dreams I often saw a troop of lovely 
children crowned with flowers, who called me and took me with 
them, in a large shell of mother of pearl, which wafted us over 
the waters to a magnificent garden. This garden was different 
from the shores of any imaginary island. There was the same 
disproportion between them as between my childish fiends, and 
the friends of my dreams of to-day. Instead o " lofty trees, 
vast prairies, rushing torrents and the wild flowers w- ich I dream 
of at present, I saw there a regularly laid out garden, clipped 
hedges, flowers about my own height, fountains falling into sil- 
ver basins, and always there were blue roses, in china vases. I 
cannot imagine why blue roses always seemed to me such won- 
derful and most desirable flowers. In all the rest, my dreams 
resembled the fairy talcs with which my memory was filled, and 
with which my own ideas and recollections were always mingled. 
Now. my dream resembles the land of freedom and purity for 
which I am always seeking, and which it peoples with sacred af- 
fections and impossible happiness. 

But, the other evening I happened to find myself really in a 
situation resembling my dream, but which had not the same ter- 
mination. 

Towards sunset I was in the public garden. As usual, there 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 53 

was very little company there. The elegant Venetian ladies 
dread the heat, and dare not go out in full daylight, but they also 
dread the cold, and never venture out in the night. There are 
three or four days in each season, which seem expressly made for 
them, and then they raise the covers of their gondolas, but they 
rarely put their foot to the ground. 

They are a species set apart, beings so frail and delicate, that 
one ray of sunlight would wither their beauty, or one breath of 
the breeze expose their very existence. All civilized men seek 
those places by preference where they may meet the fair sex ; the 
theatres, the conversazioni, the cafes, and the sheltered enclosure 
of the Piazzetta, about seven o'clock in the evening. Therefore 
few remain in the gardens, but grumbling old men, stupid 
smokers, or melancholy victims to bile. You may class me 
amongst whichever you like of these three classes. 

Gradually, I found myself quite alone, the elegant cafe which 
extends itself to the lagunes, extinguished its tapers placed in 
lilies and marine flowers made of the crystal of Murano. 

The last time you saw this garden, it was damp and sad 
enough ! As for me, I went not there to seek bright thoughts, 
nor hoping to disencumber myself of my spleen. But the 
spring ! as you say, who can resist the influence of the month 
of April ? and at Venice, my dear friend, it is yet more impos- 
sible. 

Even the stones are being clothed with verdure ; those in- 
fected marshes which our gondolas so carefully avoided, two 
months since, are now watery meadows covered by cresses, sea- 
weeds, reeds, and flags and all sorts of marine mosses, exhaling 
a peculiar perfume, beloved by those to whom the sea is a 
cherished memory; and harbouring thousands of sea-gulls, divers, 
and the lesser bustard. The petrel incessantly hovers over these 
floating meadows, where the ebb and flow bring the waters 
of the Adriatic every day, teeming with myriads of insects, 
madrepores, and shells. 

Instead of the icy cold alleys from which we so hastily fled, 
on the evening before your departure, and which I had never 
since had the courage to revisit, a half -warm sand, patches of 
Easter daisies, and groves of sumachs and sycamores were just 

D 



54 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

opening to the soft breezes from the Grecian shore. The little 
promontory, planted in the English fashion, is so beautiful, so 
thickly grown, so rich in flowers, perfume and prospect, that I 
asked myself if it were not the promised land my dreams had 
revealed to me. But no, the promised land is pure from all 
sorrow, and this is already watered with my tears. 

The sun had just sunk behind the Vicentine mountains. Blue 
mists were covering the whole heaven above Venice. 

The tower of St. Mark, the cupolas of St. Mary, and little 
groves of pinacles and minarets which rise from all quarters 
of the town, were denned like so many black points upon the 
vivid background of the horizon. The colour of the heavens 
changed through a wonderful gradation of softening tints, from 
crimson to blue ; and the water calm and limpid, faithfully re- 
flected the rainbow tints of colour. Below the town, the waves 
looked exactly like a large mirror of red copper. Never had I 
seen Venice so beautiful, so fairy like. This black shadow 
thrown between the sky and the glowing waters, as though in a 
lake of fire, seemed one of those sublime aberrations of archi- 
tecture which the poet of the Apocalypse saw, in his visions, 
floating on the shores of Patmos, when he dreamed his new 
Jerusalem, and compared her to a bride. 

Little by little the bright colours faded, the outlines became 
more massive, the depths more mysterious. Venice assumed the 
aspect of an immense fleet, then of a lofty wood of cypresses, 
into which the canals flowed like high roads of silver sand. At 
such moments I delight in contemplating the distance. When 
the outlines become vague, when every object is trembling in the 
mist, when my imagination may disport in an immense field of 
conjecture and caprice, when, by merely half closing the eyes, 
one can in fancy destroy a city, turn it into a forest, a camp, or a 
cemetery, when I can metamorphose the high roads, white with 
dust, into peaceful rivers, and the rivulets, winding so serpent-like 
down the dark verdure of the hills, into rapid torrents, then it is 
that I really enjoy nature, I play with her, I reign over her, with 
one glance I possess her and people her with my own fantasies. 

Whilst yet young, and herding flocks in the most peaceful and 
rustic country in the world, I had formed to myself a grand idea 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 55 

of Versailles, "of St. Cloud, of the Trianon, of all those pa- 
laces of which my grandmother so unceasingly spoke to me, as 
of the most beautiful things in the universe. As I wan- 
dered at night or early morning along the high roads, with a few 
dashes of fancy I created Versailles, Trianon or St. Cloud, in the 
mists which floated over our fields. A grove of old trees, muti- 
lated by the axe, became a people of tritons and naiads with 
wreathed arms bearing marine shells. The clipped hedges and 
vines of our hill sides became parterres filled with yew and box 
trees, our nut trees were changed into the shady grandeur of 
royal parks, and the wreath of smoke rising from a cottage- 
chimney hidden amongst the trees, upon which it cast its blue 
and trembling shadow, became in my eyes the grand jet d'eau 
which the humblest citizen of Paris might watch on fete days, 
but which to me, as yet, was only one of the many marvels of 
this fantastic world. 

Thus by a great expenditure of imagination I pictured to 
myself on a grand scale the exaggerated model of these things, 
these insignificant things, which I have gazed on since. It is 
owing to this manner of turning my brain into a miscroscope, that 
I have always at first found the true, the real aspect of things so 
little, so undignified. Some time has always been required to 
accept it without disdain and to discover-its peculiar beauties, and 
other subjects of admiration than those for which I had sought. 
But even in the reality, however beautiful it may be, I like to go 
on building and embellishing. 

This method is neither artistic nor poetical, I am quite aware 
of that ; — it is the act of a fool. You have often ridiculed me for 
it, you, so fond of purity of outline, boldly designed forms, 
and rich and splendid effects of light and shade. You always 
wish to seize boldly upon beauty, to feel and know what it is, to 
know why and how nature is worthy of your admiration and 
love. I was explaining these feelings to our friend the other 
evening, as we were passing in a gondola under the sombre 
arcade of the Bridge of Sighs. Do you remember the light 
which is seen at the end of the canal, and which is reflected and 
multiplied in the old and shining marble of the palace of Bianca 

d 2 



56 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

Capello ? In all Venice there is no Canelletto* more myste- 
rious, more melancholy. This single light, glancing on all sur- 
rounding objects, but* enlightening none, dancing on the water, and 
appearing to play in the wake of the passing gondolas, as though 
it were an ignis fatuus attached to their course, made me remem- 
ber that long line of lamps which trembles in the Seine, and which 
in the water looks like long crooked tracks of fire. I was telling 
Pietro that one evening I had been trying to make you appre- 
ciate this aquatic illumination, and that after laughing in my face, 
you embarrassed me very much by the simple question — " and in 
what does the beauty of this consist ? And what did you really find 
beautiful in it, in fact ?" said our friend. " I imagine to myself," 
said I, "in the reflection of these lights, fiery columns, andxascades 
of sparks, losing themselves to sight in a crystal grotto." The 
shore appeared to me, supported and built upon these luminous 
pillars, and I could willingly have jumped into the river to watch 
the fantastic sarabands the spirits of fire were dancingVith those 
of water in this enchanted palace. The doctor shrugged his 
shoulders, and I could see that he felt a profound contempt for 
all this nonsense. " I do not like these fantastic ideas," said he, 
" they come from the Germans, and their tendency is directly con- 
trary to the search for true beauty which was the aim of the arts 
in our ancient Italy. We had colour, we had form then ; but 
now the age for the fantastic has passed over us like a sponge 
dipped in the mists of the north. As for me," continued he, " I 
am like our friend, I like to reflect. You can amuse yourself by 
dreaming, if you choose." 

Once for all, I must request a formal pardon for all digres- 
sion, and I return to my eveningjn the public garden. 

I was quite absorbed in my customary fantasies, when I 
saw upon the canal of St. George, amongst the other objects 
upon its surface, a black spot moving so rapidly as soon to leave 
all the others behind. It was the new and brilliant gondola of the 
young Catullo. When within sight, I recognized the flower [of 
our gondoliers, in his nankin vest. This nankin vest had been 
the subject of a long domestic discussion in the household that 
morning. The doctor, wishing to get rid of it, had intended 

* Little canal. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 57 

giving it to his brother Giulio, under pretence of its having 
become too small for him, owing to his lately increased embon- 
point ; but Catullo, happening to come in, had begged for it in 
the most irresistible manner. My housekeeper Cattina, who ■ 
casts rather a favourable eye upon the fair and well proportioned 
throat of the gondolier, with its accompanying scapulary, observed 
that Signor Giulio had grown a greal deal this year, and that the 
vest would be too short for him. Consequently Catullo, who is 
four times as broad and as long as the two brothers put to- 
gether, became invested with a garment too short for the one, 
and too narrow for the other. By what miraculous proceeding 
the minotaur got into it without cracking every seam, I cannot 
tell, but certain it is that here before my eyes, was he making 
his appearance in the doctor's summer vestment. In truth, this 
magnificent equipment interfered a little with the suppleness of 
his movements, and he could no longer balance himself upon the 
prow with his accustomed elegance. But in the interval of 
dipping the oar into the tranquil mirror of the lake, from time to 
time, he threw a glance of satisfaction upon his resplendent 
image, and charmed with his appearance, and penetrated with 
gratitude towards the generous soul of his patron, he managed 
the gondola with a vigorous hand, and made her bound over the 
waters like a wild duck. 

Giulio was at the other end of the bark, and seconded his 
efforts with all the ease of a true child of the Adriatic. Our 
friend Pietro was lying indolently on the carpet of the gondola, 
and the beautiful Beppa, seated on the black morocco cushions, 
let the wind play amongst her ebony tresses, parted on her noble 
brow, and falling in two long loose curls upon her bosom. Our 
mothers, I believe, used to call these two long curls "repenters" 
(repentirs). I remembered this rather affected name when I saw 
them surrounding Beppa's countenance, so full of passion and 
melancholy. The gondola slackened its pace whilst one of the 
rowers took breath, and when it neared the shady banks, it 
floated idly on the w r aves which caressed the marble stairs of 
the garden. Pietro asked Beppa to sing. Giulio took his 
guitar, and Beppa's voice rose into the air full of passion 
as the appeal of a syren. She sang a verse from a song 



58 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

which Pietro composed for some fair lady, perhaps for Beppa her- 
self : 

Con lei sull 'onda placida 

Errai dalla laguna, 

Ella gli sguardi immobili 

In te fissava o luna ! 

E a che pcnsava allor ? 

Era un morrente palpito ? 

Era un nascente amor? 

" Are you there, Zorzi ?" cried she, interrupting herself as she 
perceived me looking over the balustrade. " What are you 
doing there, wicked grumbler ? Come and take coffee w r ith us 
at the Lido." " And smoke a pipe," said the doctor. " And 
take my place at the oar a little," said Giulio. 

" Many thanks," said I to Giulio, " I am extremely obliged to 
y»u, and as for the doctor, all his pipes are not worth one of 
my cigarettes ; but what excuse can I make to you, most charm- 
ing Beppa?" " Come with us then," said she. "No," said I, 
" rather must I confess myself sulky, and remain where I am." 
" Oh, what a horrible character," says she, flinging her half 
withered bouquet at me. " Will you never become more amiable, 
and why not come with us r" " How do I know ? I have not the 
slightest desire," said I, " and nevertheless I have the greatest 
pleasure in having met you." 

Catullo, who is subject, like all other domestic animals of his 
species, to mingle in the conversation, to give his opinion, shrug- 
ged his shoulders, and said to Giulio, in a shrewd manner, 
" Foresto /" "Yes, that is it exactly,'* said Giulio, "do you 
hear, Zorzi ? Catullo thinks you are a foreigner, and therefore 
perhaps a little cracked." " Never mind that," said I, " of your 
party I cannot be. You are too lovely this evening, Beppa ; the 
doctor is too tedious, Catullo's vest is insupportable to my sight, 
and Giulio is too fatigued. After a quarter of an hour's calm, 
Beppa's beautiful eyes would set me raving, and perhaps I should 
be making verses to them as bad as the doctor's, and that would 
make him jealous. Catullo is sure to have an apoplectic fit be- 
fore you arrive at the Lido, and Giulio would force me to row. 
Therefore good evening to you, my friends, you are beautiful as 
the moon, and rapid as the wind ; your bark appeared to me 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 59 

like a lovely dream, but I pray you to disappear before I perceive 
you are not a mere vision." 

" What can lie have eaten to-day ?" said Beppa to her com- 
panions. " Herbs," said the doctor gravely. "You have guessed 
rightly, oh great Esculapius," said I. " Peas, salad, and fennel 
have I eaten ; what you would call a Pythagorean repast." " A 
very wholesome regimen," said he, "but too unsubstantial. 
Come and eat some rice and oysters, and drink a bottle of Samian 
wine at the Quintavalle." " Go to the devil ! poisoner/' said I. 
" You wish to brutalize me by heavy digestions, and to weaken 
my character by spirituous liquors, in order to see me extended 
on the carpet like an old spaniel returned from the chase, that 
you may not have to blush for your intemperance and your indo- 
lence, Venetian as you are." " And what is it you intend to 
do at Venice, if it is not the far niente ?" " You are right, bene- 
detta" replied I, " but you do not know that my far niente is 
delicious where I am now gazing at you. You cannot imagine 
the pleasure it is to me to watch the gondola floating without 
my having the least trouble with its progress. It makes me feel 
as though I were dreaming, and enjoying a dream which is very 
dear to me, Beppa, and in which mysterious beings appear to 
me in a bark, and pass away like you whilst singing." " Who 
are these mysterious beings?" said Beppa. "I cannot imagine," 
replied I, "they are not human beings, they are too good and 
too beautiful, they are not angels, Beppa, for you are not with 
them." " Come and relate the whole of it to me," said she, " I 
am passionately fond of hearing dreams." " Yes, to-morrow," 
answered I, " but leave me the illusion of my dream to-night. 
Continue your song, Beppa, with that beautiful contralto which 
swells out clear and pure as a crystal bell. Continue your song 
with that voice, that accent so indolent, but yet so capable of 
becoming impassioned, and which resembles an indolent odalisque 
who gradually raising her veil, darts naked and lovely into her 
perfumed bath ; or rather reminds one of a sylph sleeping in the 
balmy mists of the twilight, but whose wings slowly unfold to 
depart with the sun into the glowing heaven. Sing on, Beppa, 
sing on, and leave me. Desire your friends to wield their oars 
like the sea bird's pinions, and to bear you off in your gondola 



60 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

like the fair Leda borne away by a wild swan. Pass on, romantic 
maiden ; go on your way, singing ; but know that the breeze 
raises the folds of your black lace mantilla, and that the rose so 
mysteriously hidden in your tresses by the hands of your lover, 
will lose its leaves without the most watchful care. Thus love 
also flies, Beppa, even when one imagines it well guarded in 
the heart of the beloved one," 

" Adieu, misanthrope," cried she, " I will do you the favour 
of quitting you ; but to punish you, I will sing in our dialect, 
and nothing of it shall you understand. " I smiled at Beppa's 
pretension of dignifying her patois into a language unintelligible 
to a French ear. I listened to the barcarole, which was really 
in the sweetest words of the graceful Venetian tongue, which 
seems purposely framed for the lips of children. 

Coi pensieri malinconici 

No te star a tormentar. 

Vien con mi, montemo in gondola, 

Andremo in mezo al mar. 

Passeremo i porti e l'isole 
Che contorna la citta : 
El sol more senza nuvole 
E la luna nascara. 
***** 

Co, spandendo el lume palido, 
Sora l'aqua inarzentada 
La se specia e la se cocola 
Come dona inamorada. 

Sta baveta che te zogola, 
Sui cavele inbovolai 
No xe torbia de la polvere 
Dele rode e dei cavai. 
Sto remeto che ne dondola 
Insordirne no se sente 
Come i sciochi de la scnrie 
Come i urli de la zente. 
**=;-** 

Si xe bella, ti xe zovene 
Ti xe fresca come un lior ; 
Vien per tuti le so lagreme, 
Kidi adeso e fa l'amor. 
***** 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 61 

In conchiglia i greci. Venere, 
Se sogneva, un altro di ; 
Forse, visto i aveva in gondola 
Una bela come te. 

The night was so calm, and the water so sonorous, that I 
heard the last strophe distinctly, although the sounds only reached 
my ear like the mysterious adieu of a soul lost in the immensity 
of space. 

When I could hear them no longer, I regretted that I had 
not joined them. But I consoled myself by remembering that 
had I gone, most probably I should already be repenting my 
compliance. 

There are days in which one feels it impossible to dwell with 
one's fellow beings ; all seems to incline one to spleen, and to 
suicide; and there is nothing in the world more melan- 
choly, nor at the same time more ridiculous, than a poor 
devil who hesitates with his last hours, and parliaments with it, 
for weeks and years, as Shakespeare's hero does with ven- 
geance. People make a jest of him. They surround him, gazing 
and exclaiming like the spectators of an awkward tumbler, 
" He will do it ! he will not do it !" Men have good reason to 
ridicule him to his very face, who has neither courage to 
support nor to quit them ; who will neither renounce life at once, 
or accept it, as it is. They punish him thus for the impertinent 
ennui which he not only experiences but avows. But their 
justice is harsh. They cannot estimate the amount of suffering 
and mortifications which may have reduced a proud and firm 
character to such a point. 

I advise all those, who may find themselves, either from ha- 
bitual tendency, or from accident, in such a state, to make very 
light repasts, to avoid irritation of the brain through the labours 
of digestion, and to wander alone, on the shore, with a cigar 
in the mouth, and the hands in the pockets, for a certain number 
of hours, proportioned to the violence and tenacity of their ill- 
humour. 

I returned at midnight, and found Pietro and Beppa singing 
in the gallery. It is Giulio who has bestowed this pompous name 
upon the antichamber, in consequence of his suspending four 



62 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

landscapes in oil on the walls, in which the skies are green, the 
water red, the trees blue, and the earth rose colour. The doctor 
declares that he shall make his fortune by selling them to some 
stupid Englishman, and Giulio declares he will have the name of 
our palace inscribed in the next edition of the Traveller's Guide 
to Venice. In order doubtless to inspire himself by the sight of 
these woods and mountains, the doctor has placed his little 
piano, upon which he improvises, under the most smoky of these 
landscapes. 

The hours of the doctor's improvisation are the most blissful 
of our day. Beppa sits at the piano, playing some little musical 
theme which guides the improvisatore in his musical rhythm, 
and thus in one morning myriads of strophes bloom, while I sleep 
profoundly in the hammock ; Giulio sits astride on the balcony, at 
the risk of falling into a passing bark, and awaking at Chioggia, 
or Palestrina. Beppa herself sits with her long black eye-lashes 
lying upon her pale cheeks, her fingers continuing the mechanical 
execution of the accompaniment, whilst her imagination traces 
some dream of love through the visions of sleep, and the cat 
curling itself round upon the portfolios of music, gives forth 
from time to time a mew, expressive of melancholy and ennui. 

This evening Beppa was alone with Pietro, and Vespasiano, 
(the name of the cat). " A miracle, doctor !" said I, as I entered, 
*' what can have made you sit up so late ?" " We were 
uneasy," said he, in a voice of rebuke, whilst his last rhyme 
expiring, left off with the word amorosa, " and you know we 
cannot go to rest when you are not returned. " " Ah ! but my 
friends/' said I, " your tenderness becomes a persecution. Now 
your want of sleep will be a subject of remorse to me, when 
I thought I was taking the most innocent w r alk in the world/ ' 
"But, dear friend,'' said Beppa, taking my hands, "we 
have a favour to ask of you." "Who can refuse you any- 
thing, Beppa ? tell me what it is." " Give me your word of 
honour not to go out after night-fall/' " Xow this is some of 
your foolish anxiety, my dear Beppa, you treat me like a child 
of four years old, and I am older than your grandfather.' ' " You 
are surrounded by dangers," said Beppa, with the pretty tone 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 63 

of sentimental declamation which becomes her so well ; " she 
who persecutes you is capable of any thing. If life is dear to 
you, on our account Zorzi, do not leave the house at present, or 
quit the country for some time." 

" Doctor," said I, " pray feel Beppa's pulse. Certainly she 
is feverish, and slightly delirious. " 

" Beppa exaggerates the danger," said he : " besides no man 
would do so ridiculous a thing, as to fly before a woman's anger,, 
however great the danger might be. But there are certain 
menaces of vengeance which must not be entirely despised ; and 
it would be only prudent not to go alone at such unusual hours 
into the most unfrequented and dangerous quarters of Venice." 

" Dangerous l" said I, shrugging my shoulders, " come now. 
this is presumption. My poor friends, you work very hard to 
sustain the ancient reputation of your country ; but it will not 
do ! you are nothing now, not even assassins. You have not a 
woman left capable of touching a poniard without fainting ex- 
actly as a Parisian fine lady would do, and you might search for 
a long time without finding a bravo, even had you the treasure 
of St. Mark to offer him as a recompense." 

The doctor made that little sign with the finger, by which the 
Venetians express so much, and which piqued my curiosity. 
" Well then," said I, " let us hear what you have to say/' " I 
will engage," answered the doctor, " to find you before twelve 
hours are passed, for the moderate sum of fifty francs at the ut- 
most, a thorough-going stabler quite ready to give to any one 
you may point out, as good a coltellata* as if we were still in 
the middle ages." 

u Many thanks, my good Sir," said I. " Nevertheless a col- 
tellata appears to me a thing so romantic and therefore so adapted 
to the new fashion of things, that I should like to receive one, 
even were it to confine me three days to my bed." 

" The French make a jest of every thing," said the doctor, 
" and yet they are not greater than others in the actual presence 
of danger. As for us, we have, happily, degenerated in the 
science of the knife ; nevertheless we have some amateurs who 

• Stab. 



64 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

still cultivate it, and there is no danger that it will be lost like 
the other fine arts." 

" Do you wish to make me believe that this art enters into 
the education of your dandies ?" 

" It does not enter into the education of any one," replied he, 
with rather a self satisfied air. " Nevertheless there is a certain 
address inherent in a Venetian's hand, which enables him to be- 
come expert in a very short time. Let us try a little to- 
gether." 

He fetched from his desk, an old ill-looking little knife, and 
opening my chamber door, he measured off about ten paces, and 
placed the candles so as to display a wafer, stuck upon the door 
as a mark. 

He held the knife negligently, and as though thinking 
of nothing evil. " Look," said he, " this is how it is done. 
One puts one's hands in one's pocket, looks at the weather, 
whistles an opera tune, passes one's man at a little distance, 
and without any person's seeing you, almost without a motion 
of the arm, the harpoon is cast. Look ! do you see that ?'' 

" I see, doctor, that your perruque has fallen into Beppa's lap, 
and that the cat has fled away quite frightened. When you 
really want to play at the game of the knife, you must endeavour 
not to betray yourself by such burlesque incidents." 

" But the knife,'' said he without being disconcerted, and with- 
out dreaming of picking up his wig, " where is the knife I pray ?" 
I looked at the mark, there the knife was, most certainly planted 
in the wafer. 

" In God's name, is it thus you bleed your patients, my dear 
doctor?" 

" It is true I dropped my perruque," said he in triumph, " but 
remember that this affair was with an oaken door, rather more 
difficult to penetrate than the sternum, epigastrium, or the heart 
of a man. As for women," added he, " mistrust those who are 
fair skinned, and fair haired, and not tall. There is a certain 
type which has not degenerated. When the blue part of the 
eye is deep in colour, and the complexion very changeable, take 
care they have no occasion for resentment against you ; or do not 
go to play the agreeable under their balconies." 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 65 

* * * * * 

As yet my friend, you have no idea of what Venice is. She 
had not quitted the mourning garb she assumed in winter, 
when you saw her ancient pillars of Greek marble, which in 
colour and form you compared to dry bones. At present, spring 
has breathed upon her, as though her breath were emerald dust. 
The base of the palaces, where oysters clustered in the stagnant 
moss, is now covered with the most tender green, and gondolas 
float between two banks of this verdure, soft as velvet, and the 
noise of the water dies away languishingly, mingled with 
the foam of the gondola's track. All the balconies are filled 
with vases of flowers ; and the flowers of Venice, brought to 
light in this warm clayey soil, blossoming in this damp atmo- 
sphere, have a freshness, a richness of tissue, and a languor of 
attitude which makes them resemble the women of this climate, 
whose beauty is brilliant and evanescent as their own. The dou- 
ble flowering bramble climbs round every pillar, and suspends its 
garlands of white rosettes, from the black arabesques of the balco- 
nies. The vanilla iris, the Persian tulip, so beautifully striped 
with pure red and white, that it seems formed from the material 
in which the ancient Venetians used to dress, Greek roses, and 
pyramids of gigantic campanulas are heaped in the vases which 
cover the balustrades. Sometimes there is quite an arbour of 
honeysuckle crowning the balcony from one end to the other, 
and two or three cages hidden in the foliage, contain nightingales 
who sing day and night, as though they were in the open 
country. These tame nightingales are a luxury peculiar to 
Venice. The women there have a remarkable talent for bring- 
ing up and educating, so to speak, these poor harmonious prison- 
ers, and know how, by every species of delicacy and kindness, to 
soften the ennui of their captivity. In the night, the birds call 
to and answer one another from each side of the canal. If a 
serenade passes, they are quiet and listen, and as soon as it has 
passed by, they recommence their song, and seem vying to sur- 
pass the melody they have just heard. 

At every street corner, the Madonna shelters her mysterious 
lamp under a jasmine canopy ; and the traguetti, shaded by great 



66 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

trellices, diffuse, all along the grand canal, the perfume of the 
vine in flower, perhaps the sweetest odour among plants. 

These traguetti are the stations for the public gondolas. Those 
which are established on the shores of the Canalazzo are the 
rendezvous of the porters who come to smoke and talk with 
the gondoliers. These people often present yery theatrical look- 
ing groups. Whilst one, lying on his gondola, alternately smiles 
and yawns at the stars, another on the shore, with open breast, 
and air of mockery, his hat thrust back upon a forest of long 
crisp curled hair, throws his great shadow on the wall. He is 
the hero of the traguetto. He makes many a night expedition 
in a bark where passengers never trust themselves, and sometimes 
makes his appearance in the morning with his head broken by 
the blow of an oar, which he pretends he received in a tavern. 
He is the hope of his family, and his breast is covered with 
images, relics, and rosaries which his wife, his mother and 
sisters have had consecrated to preserve him from the dangers 
of his nocturnal profession. Notwithstanding his exploits, he 
is neither insolent nor a boaster. A Venetian never loses sight 
of prudence. The boldest smuggler never lets a word too much 
escape him, even before his best friend ; and when he meets the 
custom house officer whose fire he may have braved during the 
evening before, he discusses the events of the night with as much 
coolness and presence of mind as if he had only learnt them by 
public rumour. Near him a cunning old churl may be seen, a 
little more knowing than the others, his voice is as hoarse as 
possible with shouting out those words derived from some un- 
known tongue, possibly Turkish or Armenian, which serve 
the Venetian gondoliers as signals of warning to prevent 
their striking against each other in the darkness, or on turning 
the corner of a canal. That fellow, now, lying like an angry dog 
upon the pavement, he has seen the glories of the republic, 
he has steered the last Doge's gondola, he has helped to 
row the Bucentaur. He relates at considerable length, 
when lucky enough to find auditors, histories of fetes much re- 
sembling fairy tales, but if he thinks he shall not be listened to 
with proper appreciation, he wraps himself up in his contempt 
of the present time, and looks at the numerous holes in his 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 67 

cassock with calm philosophy, remembering that time was, when 
he wore the striped silken vest, the floating scarf, and the plumed 
hat. Three or four others are standing face to face before the 
madonna. They seem discussing a secret of importance, they 
might almost be thought a group of bandits planning an as- 
sassination on the road to Terracina. But instead of that they 
are merely going to enjoy one of the most innocent of their 
passions, that of singing in chorus. The tenor, generally a fat 
good-humoured fellow with a shrill lisping voice, begins in a 
falsetto, from the top of his voice and the depths of his nose. 
According to their energetic expression he "gloves" the note, and 
sings the first verse alone. The others join in gradually, and the 
bass voice, hoarser than a bull with a cold in the head, takes up 
the three or four notes of which his part is composed, which he 
always brings in well, and which certainly have a fine effect. The 
bass is usually a tall young man, very much sunburnt, with a 
grave and disdainful countenance ; one of the four or five phy- 
sical types of which all the population at Venice is composed. 
This type is perhaps the rarest, the handsomest and the least 
national. The pure insular blood of the lagunes produces the 
type which Gozzi describes as fair haired, fair skinned and plump. 
Robert will doubtless bring together, on the canvass he is now 
filling, the most beautiful models of all these varieties, and give 
us, at the same time, a poetical and true idea, of this extremely 
characteristic race of people.* His colours, mixed in the ardent 
rays of the sun of southern Italy, will pale doubtless in Venice, 
and be toned down to a warmth less sudden, less dazzling. 
Happy the man who can thus change his impressions and his 
remembrances into monuments for eternity ! 

The songs which echo every evening through all the public places 
of this town are taken from every ancient and modern opera of 

* Robert has not represented in his beautiful picture of the " Venetian 
fishermen (Pecheurs Venetiens") a single individual of the pure indigenous 
race. He went to Chioggia, and took his models from the Chioggiotes and 
he has given us examples of a handsome race, slender, brown complexioned, 
grave, and not at all Venetian. This peninsula of Chioggia, although so 
near Venice, is inhabited by a colony of Greek, perhaps Asiatic, origin. They 
marry amongst themselves, and rarely intermingle their blood with that of 
the Venetian population. 



68 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

Italy, but so corrupted, arranged, and altered to suit the vocal 
capacity of those who seize upon them, that they have assumed 
an entirely indigenous character ; and more than one composer 
might be puzzled to reclaim them. But nothing embarrasses, 
and every thing suits these improvisatores of musical pot-pourris. 
One of Bellini's cavatinas is suddenly changed into a four-part 
chorus. A chorus of Rossini's is adapted for two voices in the 
middle of one of Mercandante's duos, and the burthen of some 
old barcarole by some unknown composer, slackened in its time 
like a church chaunt, tranquilly winds up the mutilated theme 
of one of Marcello's canticles. 

But the musical instinct inherent in this people, clears its way 
through all these monstrosities, in the happiest manner, and links 
these fragments together with a skill which often renders it very 
difficult to perceive the transition. All music is simplified and 
shorn of all ornament by their process, which does not injure its 
beauty. Ignorant of all written music, these impassioned dilet- 
tanti go about gathering in their memory all the scraps of melody 
they can pick up at the doors of the theatres, or at the palace 
balconies. They tack them on to other scattered bits they have 
gained elsewhere ; and the most skilled amongst them, those 
who preserve some remembrance of part-singing, regulate the 
measure. The measure is a pitiless adagio, to which Rossini's 
most brilliant cavatinas must submit ; and, really, this almost 
makes me agree with those who say that music has no character 
in itself, and that it can be made to express every possible situ- 
ation or passion, according to the movement or accent it may 
please the executors to give. It is the grandest field open to 
the imagination ; and much more than the painter, has the mu- 
sician the power of creating for others, effects, entirely opposed 
to those he has created for himself. The first time I heard 
Beethoven's pastoral symphony, I had not been forewarned as 
to the subject, and I composed in my brain a poem a la Milton 
to this admirable piece of harmony. I had placed the fall of the 
angelic rebel, and his last cry to heaven, precisely at the part 
where the composer intended the quail and the nightingale to 
sing. • When I discovered I had deceived myself, I recommenced 
my poem at the second hearing, and it was conceived a la Qess- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 69 

ner, without my imagination making the least resistance to the 
impression which Beethoven wished to produce. 

The absence of horses and carriages and the resonance of the 
canals make Venice the most delightful city for unceasing 
songs and serenading. One must be an enthusiast indeed to 
fancy that the gondolier chorusses are better than those of the 
opera at Paris, as I have heard asserted by some individuals of a 
particularly happy temperament, but it is quite certain that one 
of those chorusses, heard from afar under the arcades of these 
Moorish palaces, looking so white in the moon's rays, gives 
more pleasure even than better music executed under a colonnade 
formed of painted canvass. These rough uncultivated dilettanti 
shout in tune and time ; and the calm marble echoes prolong 
these rude and grave harmonies, like the winds over the sea. 
This magic of acoustic effect, and the desire to hear some sort 
of harmony in the silence of these enchanted nights, make one 
listen with indulgence, and almost I may say with gratitude, 
to the humblest melody which floats by, and is lost in the dis- 
tance. 

When one reaches Venice, and a well equipped gondolier at- 
tends your wishes at the hotel door, with his cloth vest and 
round hat, it is impossible to find in him the slightest trace of 
that elegance so peculiarly his in the fairy days of Venice. It 
would be as vainly sought in the rags of those who yield their 
raiment up to a more picturesque disorder. But the sharp, 
penetrating, and subtle wit of this celebrated class is not alto- 
gether lost. Their physiognomy has generally that expression 
of honeyed finesse, which at first sight might pass for benevolent 
gaiety, but which covers a biting causticity and profound cun- 
ning. The characteristic of this race is the same as that which the 
Venetian race has always been, prudence. Nowhere are there 
more words, and fewer facts, more quarrels, and fewer combats. 
The barcaroles have a marvellous talent for insulting each other, 
but it is very rarely they come to blows. 

Two barks run foul of each other at the angle of a wall, from 
the awkwaidness of one and the inattention of the other party. 
They wait in silence for the shock which it is now too late to 
avoid, their first care is for the bark ; when each ieels quite sure 

E 



70 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

that he is not damaged, they begin to measure each other while 
the gondolas are separated. Then begins the discussion. " "Why 
did you not call out siastali ?"* " I did call out." " No." 
" Yes." " I declare you did not by Bacchus !" u I swear I did 
by Diana !" " But with what a devil of a voice !" " But what 
sort of ears have you then to hear with ?" " Pray tell me in 
what tavern you clear your voice in such a way ?" " Tell me 
what ass your mother was dreaming of before you were born ?" 
" The cow who brought you into the world ought to have taught 
you how to low." " The ass who gave you birth ought also to 
have given you the ears of your family." " What is that you say, 
you dog ?" " What is it you say yourself, you monkey's son ?" 
Then the discussion gets yet more animated, and gets warmer 
and warmer in proportion as the champions increase their dis- 
tance. When they have put one or two bridges between them, 
the threats begin again. " Come here, that I may make you 
feel what wood my oars are made of." " Just wait a little, you 
sea hog, till I spit upon your boat, and sink it." " If I were to 
sneeze near yours, it would fly to pieces." " Your gondola 
would be all the better for sinking a little, to wash off the worms 
which are gnawing her." " Yours is terribly in want of spiders, 
for you have been obliged to steal your maiden's petticoat to 
line it with." "Accursed be the Madonna of your Traguetto (or 
station) for not sending the plague to rid us of such gondoliers." 
k4 If the Madonna of your station were not the devil's concubine, 
you would have been drowned long since." And thus from 
metaphor to metaphor they proceed to the most horrible impre- 
cations, but fortunately, just as they are on the point of choking, 
their voices are lost in the distance, and the insults continue 

for a long time after the adversaries can no longer hear. 
* * * #- # # 

The gondoliers of private persons at the present time, wear 
round vests of English cotton, printed in large stripes of various 
colours. A vest with a white ground with a Persian design, 
white trowsers, a red or blue sash, and a black velvet cap, with 

* Stali amount the gondoliers is, I believe, a remnant of the lingia franca 
which the Turkish gondoliers speak, who were formerly a la mode at Venice, 
and means " to .the right." Siastali means " to the left." 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 71 

a silken tassel falling over the left ear, after the manner of the 
Chioggiotes, compose an elegant and novel gondolier costume. 
There are yet to be seen some young men of good family who 
assume it, and divert themselves by steering a little bark over 
the canals. This exercise was once to the dandies of Venice 
what horse-riding is to those of Paris. They practise more 
particularly in those narrow canals where the nearness of the 
windows allows their grace and elegance to be admired by the 
fair. This is still sometimes seen. Every evening, two of these 
young fashionables come and track our little canal with a re- 
markable strength and rapidity. I fancy myself they are at- 
tracted by Beppa's beautiful eyes ; and that one of the two has 
some wish to please her. He is perched upon the poop, the 
most honourable as well as the most perilous position, and the 
bark is carefully kept within such a space as does not withdraw 
it from the fair lady's eyes. Certainly few professional gondoliers 
could compete with these two amateurs. They lance their skiff 
like an arrow, and I doubt if even a well mounted cavalier could 
follow their course on the parallel shore. But the greatest display 
of skill, and the one which our amateurs execute most bravely, is 
to impel the gondola with all the strength of the oars until it is 
upon the point of running against the angle of some bridge, and 
stopping at the very instant of time necessary to prevent the 
shock. It is an adroit and courageous display of skill, and I 
regret more seeing it fall into disuse, than the falling off in 
luxury and riches at Venice. If energy of body and mind is 
not lost, one need despair of nothing — and besides, it is not a 
bad way of attracting the attention of women. I should be 
astonished if Beppa could see this fair haired young man, with- 
out some interest, poised upon his fragile skiff, seeming to risk 
his own as well as its existence, and twenty times within an 
hour, triumph over the danger to which he exposes himself, for 
the sake of a look from Beppa, who pretends she does not even 
know of what colour his eyes are. Hum ! Beppa ! 

But all amateurs are not so fortunate as these. Miserable 
are those who fail before their fair one's windows, or before the 
groups of criticising gondoliers upon the bridges. The other 
day, two worthy citizens, each bearing half a century on his 



72 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

head, and having been occupied for ten years at the least in 
cultivating their obesity, defied one another, no one knew why, 
to a regatta. Apparently each had heen boasting of his prowess 
of former days, and their self love had become a little excited. 
However that might be, the two old bachelors had allowed their 
friends to wager on their respective skill. At the appointed 
hour, the gondolas grouped themselves upon the field of battle. 
The betters, and a group of amateurs and idlers congregated on 
the banks and neighbouring bridges. The rival barks advance, 
and the two champions approach the poop with majestic slow- 
ness. Ser Ortensio seizes his oar with a vigorous arm. But 
before Ser Demetrio could do likewise, either from chance or 
malice, one of the spectator's gondolas ran against his bark, 
the worthy man lost his equilibrium, and fell heavily into the 
water like a willow uprooted by the tempest. Happily the canal 
was not very deep. Ser Demetrio found himself up to the neck 
in lukewarm water and up to his knees in mud. Imagine the 
laughter and hisses of the spectators, amongst whom there were 
plenty of sarcastic gondoliers. The friends of the unlucky 
Demetrio hastened to get him out, they cleansed him, put him 
into a hot bed, and his house-keeper kept him all the day long 
drinking cordials, whilst his adversary, declared victorious by 
the unanimous voice, went to the restaurateur of St. Marguerite, 
to enjoy a good dinner, paid for by the collection and the guests 
of both parties. 

The independent, or public gondolier, possesses nothing but 
his shirt, pantaloons, and his pipe, and sometimes a" little black 
puppy, which swims by the side of the gondola as indefatigably 
as any fish. The gondolier has the favourite Madonna of his 
Traguetto tattooed upon his breast by a needle dipped in gun- 
powder. His patron* is tattooed on one arm, his patronne* on 
the other. He is not like our hackney coachmen, at the orders 
of the first comers, day and night. He only obeys the orders of 
the chief of his Traguetto, a simple gondolier like himself, elected 
by vote, approved by the police, who points out to each of his 
underlings the day when he is to be on service at the Traguetto. 

The rest of his time, the gondolier works on his own account, 

* Male and female saints. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 73 

and when one or two jobs in the morning have assured him 
entertainment for his stomach and his pipe until the next day, 
he lies down to sleep in the sun, face upwards, without troubling 
himself if the emperor passes by, and without being tempted by 
any offer, which would cost him the sweat of his brow to realize. 
It is true that his occupation is a more laborious one than that 
of guiding two peaceful coursers perched on a high seat. But 
his character is also more careless and more independent. Fast- 
ing, he is supple, flattering and a beggar, and jeers equally at 
him who haggles with him for his fare, and him who overpays 
him. He is given to drink, a joker, a gossip, familiar, and a 
rascal in certain respects, that is, he will religiously respect your 
handkerchief, your umbrella, a sealed packet, or an unopened 
bottle ; but leave him alone with bottle or pipe which has been 
already begun, and you find him occupied in drinking your 
Maraschino, or smoking your tobacco with all the tranquillity of 
a man, employed in the most lawful occupation. 

-fr •%■ ^ & H- * iS- 

No one has ever said enough of the beauty of the heavens, 
and the Relights of the night at Venice. The lagune is so calm, 
that in fine evenings, the stars do not even tremble on its sur- 
face. When you are in the midst, it is so blue, so quiet that the 
outline of the horizon cannot be distinguished, and the waves 
and the heaven form an azure veil, where reverie loses itself 
and sleeps. The atmosphere is so transparent, so pure that 
thousands more stars may be seen, than in our north of 
France. I have seen here, nights, when the silvery lustre of 
the stars occupied more space in the firmament, than the blue 
of the atmosphere. It was a galaxy of diamonds giving almost 
as good a light as the moon at Paris. 

Not that I wish to say anything evil of our moon. She has 
a peculiar beauty, whose melancholy speaks perhaps more to 
the intellect, even, than this brilliance. The misty nights of our 
damp provinces, have charms which no one has ever better ap- 
preciated than myself, and which no one has less wish to under- 
rate. Here Nature, more powerful in her influence, perhaps, 
imposes too much silence on the mind ; she sends all thought 
to sleep, but agitates the heart, and dominates the senses. One 



U LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

must not even dream, unless one is a man of genius, of writing 
poems during these Toluptuous nights, one must love or sleep. 

As for sleeping, there is a most delicious spot : the platform 
of white marble which descends from the viceroy's gardens to 
the canal. When the ornamented gate is shut on the garden-side, 
one can go in a gondola to these steps, still warm from the rays 
of the setting sun, and remain without being interrupted by any 
inopportune stroller, unless he be endowed with the faith so 
much needed by St. Peter. Many hours have I passed there- 
alone, thinking of nothing, whilst Catullo and his gondola 
slumbered in the midst of the waters, within call. 

When the breath of midnight passes over the linden trees, 
and scatters their blossoms over the waters, when the perfume of 
wall flowers and geraniums rises in gusts, as though the earth 
gave forth her sighs of fragrance to the moon ; when the cu- 
polas of St. Mary raise towards heaven their alabaster hemi- 
spheres and their turban-crowned minarets ; when all is white, 
the water, the sky, the marble, the three elements of Venice, 
and when from the tower of St. Mark a giant sound hovers over 
my head, then I begin to feel life through every pore, and 
evil be to him who should then come to make an appeal to 
my soul ! I vegetate, I repose, I forget — Who would not do the 
same in my place : How can you think I should torment my- 
self that monsieur such a one has written an article on my books, 
that another has declared my principles to be very dangerous, 
and my cigar immoral ? All that I can say is, that these gentlemen 
arc very good to trouble themselves a*bout me, and that if I had 
not some debts to satisfy, I would not quit the viceroy's garden 
steps to furnish them with scandal from my desk. 

"But fame!'' said Alfleri. "But famine/" said Gozzi 
merrily. 

I defy any one, no matter who, to prevent me from sleeping 
happily when I see Venice, so impoverished, so oppressed, so 
miserable, still so beautiful, so calm, in spite of men and of 
time. Behold her, round me, admiring herself in the lagunes 
with the air of a sultana ; and this populace of fishermen, sleep- 
ing: on the pavement, winter as well as summer, with no other 
pillow than one of granite, no other mattress than a tattered 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 75 

cloak ; is not sach a populace a great example of philosophy r 
When it has no longer wherewithal to purchase a pound of rice, 
it sings a chorus to drive awa,y the pangs of hunger ; thus 
braving masters and misery, as it used to brave cold, heat, and 
the sudden tempest. It would require many years of slavery 
to embrute entirely this careless frivolous character, so ac- 
customed for many years to be nourished with fetes and diver- 
sions. Existence is still so easy at Venice, nature is so rich 
and productive ! The sea and the lagunes are full of fish and 
game ; in the open streets enough shell-fish can be found to 
nourish the population. The gardens produce an excellent re- 
venue, there is not a corner of this fertile clay which does not 
return more in fruits and vegetables than a field would on the 
mainland. From the thousand islets with which the lagune is 
covered, boats come every day loaded with fruits, flowers, and her- 
bage so odoriferous that the trace of their perfume is smelt in the 
mists of the morning. The port, being free, brings all foreign 
provisions in, at a very low price, the most delicious wines of 
the Archipelago cost less at Venice than our most ordinary vint- 
age at Paris. Oranges are brought in such profusion from 
Palermo, that on the day of a ship's arrival from thence, ten of 
the most beautiful may be bought for two or three pence of our 
money. The mere animal life is therefore the least subject 
of expence at Venice, and the carriage of provisions is 
managed with an ease which encourages the indolence of 
the inhabitants. Provisions are brought by water, even to 
the doors of the houses ; the retail-sellers pass over the bridges, 
and through the paved streets. The payment for the articles 
of daily consumption is managed by means of a cord and 
basket. Thus, a whole family may live grandly, without a 
single person, even the servant, leaving the house. What a 
difference between this easy life, and the hard work a family, 
not very poor, must endure at Paris, before it can have 
a dinner, worse than that of the lowest workman at Venice ! 
What a difference also between the physiognomy, so pre-occu- 
pied, so serious, of the crowd pressing and pushing, which 
splashes and elbows its way through the bustle of Paris, and 
the nonchalant demeanour of this Venetian populace, sauntering 



76 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

along singing and lying down, when it lists, on tlie smooth warm 
flagstones of the quays. The little tradesmen, who, every day, 
bring their articles of commerce into Venice in a basket, are 
the most amusing people in the world, and give away their 
wit with their merchandize. The fisherman at the day's end, 
tired and hoarse with crying his fish all the morning, sits 
down on a public place, or on a parapet, and there to get rid of 
the remainder of his stock, he lets fly on the passers by and 
the gazers from the windows, the most ingenious inducements to 
purchase. " See," he says, " the very best fish of my stock ! 
I have kept it, because I know that respectable persons do not 
dine earlier than now. Look what beautiful anchovies, four for 
two centimes. Let the pretty maiden give one glance to this 
beautiful fish, and one into the bargain to the poor fisherman !" 
The water carrier makes witticisms whilst crying his "fresh, 
soft water /" 

The gondolier, stationed at the Traguetto, invites passengers 
by the most miraculous offers : " Will you go to Trieste this 
afternoon, Monseigneur ? here is a beautiful gondola, that does 
not fear the tempest in the open sea, and a gondolier ready 
to row you, without stopping, to Constantinople !" 

Unexpected pleasures are the only pleasures in the world. 
Yesterday I wished to go and see the moon rise over the Adriatic ; 
I had never been able to decide Catullo, the father, to conduct 
me to the Lido. He pretended, what they all pretend when 
they do not wish to obey, that the water or the wind was con- 
trary. I wished the doctor at the devil with all my heart for 
sending this asthmatic old fellow, who is ready to give up the 
ghost at each stroke of his oar, and who is more talkative when 
he is tipsy than a mag-pie. I was in a desperate ill-humour 
when we met, just opposite la Salute, a bark which was floating 
gently towards the grand canal, leaving behind it, like a per- 
fume, the sounds of a delightful serenade. " Turn the prow," 
said I to old Catullo ; " I hope at least you are strong enough to 
follow that" gondola." 

Another bark floating idly by, imitated my example, then a 
second, then another, at last all those who were enjoying the 
fresh air on the canal, and several even which were vacant, 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 77 

and whose gondoliers suirounded us, crying, " Music, music," 
with an air, hungry as the Israelites in the desert for the 
manna. In ten minutes a flotilla was formed round these dilet- 
tanti ; all the oars were silent, and the barks were left at the 
will of the current. 

The harmony floated softly in the breeze, and the haut-bois 
sighed so sweetly that each one held his breath for fear of in- 
terrupting its accents so full of tenderness and love. The violin 
mingled its voice so sad, and with such sympathetic yearnings, 
that I dropped my pipe, and drew my cap lower on my brow. 
Then the harp gave forth two or three chords of harmonious 
sounds, which seemed to descend from heaven and promise 
the caresses and consolation of its angels to all souls suffering 
on this earth. Then came the horn as from the depths of a 
wood, and each of us might fancy he saw his first love ad- 
vance from the forests of Friuli, and approach with these sounds 
of joy. The haut-bois replied with sounds more full of passion 
than those uttered by the dove seeking her mate in the air. 
The violin exhaled its sobs of convulsive joy, the harp gave 
forth its full and generous vibrations, like the palpitations of an 
ardent breast, and then the sounds of the four instruments 
mingled like happy souls embracing each other before their de- 
parture for a better world. I drank in their accents, and my 
imagination heard them after they had ceased to exist. Their 
passage left a magic warmth in the atmosphere, as though love 
had agitated it with his wings. 

There was some minutes silence, w T hich no one dared to 
break. The melodious bark began to flee before us as though 
it wished to make its escape, but we quickly followed in its 
track, we might have been compared to a flock of petrels dis- 
puting the possession of a goldfish. We pressed upon its 
flight with our prows, like large steel scythes in the moon's 
beams, shining like the fiery teeth of Ariosto's dragons. The 
fugitive achieved its deliverance in the same way as Orpheus : 
some chords from the harp reduced us all to order and to silence. 
At the sound of its light arpeggios, three barks ranged them- 
selves on each side of the one bearing the music, and followed 
the adagio with most religious slowness. The others remained 



78 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER, 

behind like a cortege, and this was perhaps the best situa- 
tion for hearing. This long file of silent gondolas floating 
gently with the wind on the magnificent grand canal of Venice, 
was a cpup-dceil which realized the most lovely dreams. Every 
undulation of the water, every slight movement of the oars, 
seemed to respond sympathetically to the sentiment of each 
musical passage, extracted from the most harmonious themes of 
Oberon and Guillaume Tell. The gondoliers erect on the poop, 
their bold attitudes clearly defined against the blue atmosphere, 
seemed to form a back-ground of dark spectres behind the 
groups of friends and lovers they were conducting. The moon 
rose slowly, and peeping curiously over the roofs, seemed also 
to listen and love the music. A palace on one side of the 
canal, yet plunged in obscurity, defined upon the clear sky its 
enormous Moorish outlines, darker than the gates of hell. 

The other shore, illumined by the rays of the full moon, at that 
time as large and brilliant as a silver shield, received the light upon 
its silent and serene arcades. These immense piles of fairy like 
buildings, lighted only by the stars, wore an aspect of solitude, 
repose, and immobility truly sublime. The slender statues rising 
by hundreds into the air seemed mysterious spirits watching the 
repose of the quiet city, slumbering like the Sleeping Beauty 
in the Wood, and condemned like her to slumber for a hundred 
years or more. 

We floated on for about an hour. The gondoliers had all 
become a little excited. The old Catullo himself bounded about 
at the Allegro and followed the rapid course of the little flotilla. 

Then his oar sank lovingly in the andante, and he accompanied 
this graceful movement with a kind of grunting beatitude. 
The orchestra stopped under the portico of the Lion Blanc. I 
leaned forward to see my lord get out of his gondola. He was 
a splenetic youth, about eighteen or twenty, loaded with an 
immense Turkish pipe, which he was most certainly incapable 
of smoking through, without going into the last stage of a con- 
sumption. 

He had the appearance of extreme ennui ; but he had paid 
for a serenade which I had profited by, far better than he had, 
and I felt extremely obliged to him. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 79 

I returned up the canal, and just as we were stopping before 
the Piazzetta steps, where I had a rendezvous with my friends to 
drink sherbet, I met a bark full of gondoliers in a very merry 
mood, who cried out, " Monsieur, make your gondolier sing us a 
verse of Tasso." This was an epigram aimed at old Catullo, who 
is afflicted by some chronic malady of the trachea, and therefore 
has a perpetual extinction of voice. " They seem to know you 
here, old gentleman," said I. "Ah! lustrissimoV replied he, 
" It is nothing. I am a Nicoloto." " You, a Nicoloto, you ! with 
such a figure ?" asked I. " A Nicoloto," said he, and one of 
the best of them." " A noble, perhaps :" " Your excellency is 
right." "■ Perhaps by chance you count a doge in your family ?" 

" Lustrissimo, better than that, I have three pores (pigs) that 
is, three regatta prizes, three portraits at home with the flag of 
honour, and the last was my own father, a tall man, do you know 
signor, twice as large and as tall as my son. I am a poor spider- 
shaped fellow, all crooked by an accident, but my son is a good 
proof that we are of the right lineage. If the emperor would 
but have the goodness to give us a regatta, it would soon be seen 
that the blood of the Catullo family has not degenerated." " The 
devil it would !" said I. " "Will you have the goodness, most 
illustrious Catullo, to put me on shore, and not to steal my to- 
bacco, during the hour you will have to wait for me. " There 
is no danger, master," replied he, " the tobacco hurts my 
throat." 

" Are there still Xicoloti and Castellani :" asked I of my 
friends who met me at the foot of the Lion's column. " There are 
indeed,'' said Pietro. "Even now there is a rumour in the city, 
and some excitement amongst the police, because there seems 
to be an intention amongst the gondoliers to renew their ancient 
quarrels." " I think," said Beppa, " that they had better leave 
them alone ; in the peaceful disposition they are in now-a-days, 
their quarrels do no harm to any one, and will pass off in mere 
burlesque contests of words." 

" We must not trust to that too much," said the doctor, " it 
is not so very long since the last endeavour to revive the spirit 
of party, and their beginning promised well." " That was I be- 
lieve in 1817," said Beppa, "and you must know Zorzi, you 



80 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

who despise so much the little daggers of Venice, that in four 
or five days there were such good stabs exchanged that 
more than a hundred persons were grievously wounded, and 
many did not recover." " Pretty well ;" said I, " but can you 
tell me most learned doctor, the origin of these dissensions ; 
you who know even in what fashion the Doge Orseolo used to have 
his beard trimmed ?" " Their origin is lost in the night of time, 
said he, " it is as ancient as Venice itself. However, I can tell 
you, that this division parted the nobles into two bodies as well 
as the plebeians. The Castellani inhabited the Isle of Castello, 
that is to say the eastern extremity of Venice, up to the bridge 
of the Rialto. The Nicoloti occupied the island of St. Nicolo, 
where the place of St. Mark, the quay of the Esclavons, &c. are 
situated. The grand canal serves as a boundary to the two 
camps. The Castellani, richer and more elegant than the others, 
represented the aristocratic faction. The nobles held the first 
employments in the republic, and the Castellani people were 
employed in the works at the arsenal. They furnished pilots for 
the ships of war, and the doge's rowers for the bucentaur. The 
Nicoloti were the democratic party. 1 Their gentlemen of family 
were sent into the little towns of the mainland as their gover- 
nors, or filled the secondary posts in the armies. The populace of 
this division were poor, but brave and independant. Their pe- 
culiar occupation was fishing, they had their own doge, a plebeian, 
and under the authority of the other doge, but invested with 
magnificent rights, amongst others, that of sitting at the right 
hand of the doge in all assemblies and solemn fetes. This doge 
was generally an old experienced mariner, and bore the title of 
Gastaldo of the Nicoloti; his office was to preside over the 
routine of the fisheries, and watch over the tranquillity of those 
under him, of whom he was at once the equal and the superior. 
It was these privileges which made the Nicoloti say to their 
rivals, 

i( You row for the doge, we row with the doge." 
" Ti, ti voghi el dose, e mi vogo col dose." 

The republic maintained this rivalry, and scrupulously pre- 
served the privileges of the Nicoloti, under the pretext of keep- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 81 

ing alive the moral and physical energy of the population, but 
more probably to counterbalance, by a skilful equilibrium the 
power of the patricians." 

" The government,' ' continued the doctor, " lost no opportu- 
nity of nattering the self-love of these brave plebeians, and gave 
them fetes where they were called upon to display the vigour of 
their muscles, and their skill in conducting their gondolas. The 
feats of strength of the Nicoloti are yet the interminable subjects 
of boasting and pride among the descendants of this herculean 
race, and you may have seen, in some of their hovels where we 
have been together to attend to the wounded, great oil paint- 
ings, representing the grand feat of the human pyramid, and 
the portraits of the conquerors in the regatta, with their em- 
broidered banner fringed with gold, ornamented in the midst 
with the figure of a pig ; the gift of a veritable pig accompanied 
this prize, which was only the third, but was not the least en- 
vied. The Nicoloti joined in these combats and their women 
had regattas, in which they rowed with all their heart, and with 
incontestable strength and dexterity. You may judge of what 
this populace might have been in anger, had not the government 
kept it in mirth and good humour by these adroit flatteries of its 
vanity, and by a scrupulously just administration." " Foreign go- 
vernments," said I, " use other means ; they throw into prison 
and punish severely all those who display the least signs of 
strength and courage." " It must be acknowledged," said the 
doctor, " that the government was not in the wrong to repress 
the excesses of 1817, but they ought also to have found some 
means of preventing their recurrence." " Do you think there is 
danger of that ? From the manner in which Catullo spoke 
of his plebeian nobility just now, I should not think the Castel- 
lani were particularly friendly with the Nicoloti." " So little 
so," replied the doctor, " that a conspiracy of the Nicoloti has 
just been discovered, and there is a talk of arresting forty or 
fifty of them." 

When we had finished our sherbet, we found Catullo so fast 
asleep that the doctor could find nothing better to do, than to fill 
his hand with water, and to shed it gently upon the grey beard 
(le onede piume, as Dante would have said) of the octogenarian 



82 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

gondolier. This pleasantry did not all vex him, and he set cou- 
rageously to work. " Were you not," said the doctor, during the 
journey, " at the famous dinner at St. Samuel last week ?" " Who, 
I, patron ?" replied the hypocritical old fellow. " I ask you," said 
the doctor, " if you were there or not ? ,? "lama Nicoloto, patron." 
"I am not asking you that," said the doctor, angrily. " You 
see he cannot give a direct answer to a question. Do you take 
me for a spy, you sly old fellow ?" " No, certainly, illustrissimo, 
but what can you want to know from an old man like me, half 
deaf, half imbecile." " Say rather half a drunkard, half a rogue," 
said I. " There is not much danger," said the doctor, " of these 
rascals replying, without knowing why they are questioned. Well, 
then, if you will not speak, I will. I warn you, you old fox, that 
you will soon be in prison.' * " In prison ! I, why, illustrissimo ?" 
" Because you dined at St. Samuel," said the doctor. " And 
what harm was there in dining at St. Samuel, patron ?" " Be- 
cause, I tell you, that you have been conspiring against the liberty 
of the state." " I, Cristo ! what harm can a poor man like me do 
to the state ?" " Are you not a Nicoloto ?" said the doctor. " Yes, 
I was born a Nicoloto.' 1 " Well, then, all the Nicoloti are accused 
of conspiracy," said I, M and you among the rest." " Santo Dio, 
I never mingled in any conspiracy." " Do not you know a certain 
Gambierazi ?" " Gambierazi !" said the cunning old fellow, with 
a surprised face ; u what Gambierazi ? " Parbleu ! your comrade 
Gambierazi ; one would imagine you had never set eyes on him." 
" Lustrissimo, I have not heard the name you mention ; Gamba — 
Gambierazi ; there are so many Gambierazi I" " Very well ; you 
will reply more categorically to the police to-morrow," said the 
doctor. " Now just look at this creature, whom I have saved from 
being hung at least twenty times, and who ought to believe in me 
as in God ; just look at him, playing fast and loose with me, and 
suspecting me like a police underling. Let Jiim go to the devil ! 
If I take any more interest for him in this affair, may 1 be hanged 
myself." 

This morning as we were taking coffee on the balcony, we saw 
Catullo the father, and Catullo the son, passing in a gondola, with 
two police officers. " Indeed," said the doctor, " I did not think 
I had guessed so well ; but what cau that old fellow want, with 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 83 

his voice croaking like a frog with a cold, and his signs of in- 
telligence ?" Catullus pater was really making incredible efforts 
that we should hear him, but his chronic catarrh quite prevented 
him ; and he therefore held an amicable conversation with the 
officer, who consented to stop the gondola and accompany his pri- 
soner up to us. "Ah! ah!" said the doctor, "what do you 
want here ? Do not you know it was I who denounced you ?" 

" Oh! I know very well it was not, lustrissimo . I am come 
to recommend myself to your protection." " But what have you 
committed, you unfortunate rascal ? " said the doctor, in a terrible 
voice. " Did not 1 tell you, that you had been getting into some 
horrible conspiracy ? " The unfortunate prisoner hung down his 
head with a pitiful air, and the police officer, who was leaning 
against the door in a most tragical attitude, assumed such a terrible 
countenaance, that Beppa and I burst out into sympathetic laugh- 
ter. " But what crime have you committed, wretched old man ?" 
said Giulio. * I do not know, patron." " Always the same 
answer," said Pietro. " How the devil can 1 justify you, if I do 
not know of what you are accused ?"' " I do not know myself, 
lustrissimo , except that we have been making a Nicoloto." <l What 
does that mean?" said I. " Faith, I do not know," said Giulio; 
" what do you mean by that ?" " We have made a Nicoloto," re- 
peated Catullo. " And what do you do," said the doctor, frown- 
ing, " in order to make a Nicoloto ?" " With Christ, with four 
torches, and with sepia ink." " Oh ! that is too mysterious for 
me/' said the doctor ; " you must explain your sorceries, wicked 
wretch, for I am a Christian, and understand nothing of the devil's 
worship." "And we, also, we are Christians," cried the old man, 
in despair ; " but there is no harm in what we did, patron. It is a 
very old custom : our forefathers observed it ; and we have always 
practised it, without adding anything of evil. We have chosen 
our chief and baptized him." " Ah ! I understand, you have 
elected your doge ? " " Yes, patron" " And you baptised him 
with sepia ink, because black is the Nicoloto colour." " Yes 
patron.''* " And you made him swear upon the crucifix to defend 
the rights and privileges of the Nicoloti ?" (e Yes, patron /" 
" And to stab a dozen or two Castellani every morning ?" " No, 
patron !" " And this doge is the most illustrious gondolier Gam- 



84 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

bierazi ?" " Yes, patron ! my comrade, Gambierazi." M Whom 
you were not even acquainted with yesterday evening ?" " Yes, 
patron !" " And your son has also taken part in this sacrilegious 
farce }" " Yes, my son also." " And what do you expect me to 
do for you, when you give rise to such heavy accusations against 
you ? Do not you know that you may even compromise me, and 
that I may be suspected of having suborned you to excite your com- 
panions to rebel?" This word suborn, in Pietro's mouth, made 
Beppa laugh so much that the doctor lost his gravity, and the po- 
lice-officer, who had the most good-humoured face, for an officer, 
that can be imagined, began to laugh without knowing why ; but 
fearing to derogate from the dignity of his office, he assumed im- 
mediately a terrific countenance, and showed the door to Catullo, 
saying, '• Come, march, we have enough of this." Catullo de- 
parted, after kissing the doctor's hands, and entreating him to 
appear for him before the commissary. " Get away with you, you 
accursed fellow !" said the doctor, who beginning to feel rather 
touched, became twice as rough in his manners, according to his 
usual custom ; " I'll be damned if I trouble myself about you." 
But as soon as the criminal was out of the room, he seized his hat, 
and ran off to the commissary. There he learned that the affair 
was more comic than serious, that about forty of the Nicoloti had 
been arrested, and amongst them all the gondoliers of the Tra- 
guetto, to which Catullo father and Catullo son belonged ; but that 
after keeping them under lock and key four or five days to frighten 
tbem a little, they would be allowed to go about their business. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 85 



LETTER III. 

For several days we have been wandering about on the Venetian 
Archipelago, seeking a little vital air outside this marble city, 
which seems to have become a burning mirror ; the nights espe- 
cially are stifling. Those who inhabit the interior of the city sleep 
all dav long, some on their immense sofas, so well adapted to the 
climate, the others on the floors of their gondolas. In the evening 
they seek the fresh air in their balconies, or prolong them under 
the awnings of the coffee-shops, which fortunately are never closed. 
But the usual songs and laughter are no longer heard : both 
nightingales and gondoliers have lost their voices. Millions of little 
shell-fish, quite phosphorescent, shine at the base of the walls, 
and glittering seaweeds float along, in the dark waters, round the 
slumbering gondolas. Nothing breaks the quiet of the nights but 
the sharp cry of the mice, who scamper over the steps of the ter- 
races. Heavy black clouds float over from the Alps, and, as they 
pass over Venice, scatter their silent lightning ; but they discharge 
their burthen into the Adriatic, and the air is burning with the 
electricity they have brought with them. 

The poor children and the gondolier's dogs, are, except the fish, 
the only beings who do not suffer from' this excessive heat. They 
never leave the water except to eat or sleep, and the rest of their 
time they swim about pele-mele. As for us, troubled as we are 
with shirts, and the impossibility of passing the whole of one's life 
in putting them on and off, we go to seek the sea-air, which Pro- 
vidence has made so grateful in every land, and which generally 
makes itself felt at noon on the lasroons. The oniv travellers we 
meet are poor little famished butterflies, who venture the passage 
from isle to isle, trying to find some flower the sun has not entirely 
withered, but they often yield to fatigue, end fall into the waves 
before they can achieve their long and perilous journey, 

Yesterday we passed before the isle of St, Servilio, which is in- 
habited only by lunatics and idiots. Between the bars of a window 
looking on the water, we saw a thin, pale, old man sitting, his 
elbow on the sill. He supported his head with one hand ; his 

F 



86 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

hollow eyes were fixed upon the horizon. For a moment he with- 
drew his hand, wiped his bald and narrow forehead, and sank again 
into the same state of immobility. In this immobility there was some • 
thing so terrible, that my eyes were involuntarily attracted towards 
it. When we had turned the corner of the facade, I saw that Bep- 
pa's eyes had followed mine, and she now looked towards me inquir- 
ingly, " Is he mad ?" said she. " A raving madman/' answered I. 

Another man, still young, rather stout, fresh coloured, and of an 
agreeable countenance, graced by beautiful black curly hair, his 
brow covered with the sweat of labour, came from among the 
bushes which skirt the garden, and advanced towards us. He held 
a rake ; — his manner had nothing peculiar in it, he addressed us in 
a friendly manner, but his unconnected words betrayed the derange- 
ment of his mind. The abbe was seated at the prow; his lively 
and striking countenance cannot be contemplated with indifference, 
and he looked at the poor lunatic with a benevolent expression. 
" Adieu, dear friend!" cried the amateur gardener, seeing that we 
were not going to land at the asylum. He uttered these words in 
a tone of affectionate regret, and making a farewell sign to us with 
his hand, he resumed his work with child -like eagerness. " There 
is some good thought in that poor head/' said the abbe, " for there 
was serenity in his countenance, and harmony in his voice." 

Which amongst us in fact knows what may or may not turn his 
brain ? One need only be better or worse than other men to lose 
one's reason or one's happiness. " Kind hearted madman," said he, 
gaily sending a benediction towards the gardener, " may God pre- 
serve you from ever being cured !" We arrived at the isle of St. 
Lazarus, where we wished to pay a visit to the Armenian monks. 
Brother Hieronymus, with his long white beard contrasted with a 
black moustache, and a countenance at first sight so mild, and 
beautiful, came to meet us. With the untiring complaisance of 
monachal vanity, he led us from the printing office to the library, 
from the laboratory to the garden. He showed us his mummies, 
his Arabian manuscripts, the book printed in twenty-four different 
languages, under his own inspection, his Egyptian papyrus, and 
his Chinese pictures. He spoke Spanish with Beppa, Italian with 
the doctor, German and English with the abbe, French with me ; 
and each time that we paid him a compliment upon his immense 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

knowledge, his look, full of the union of hypocrisy and frankness, 
so peculiar to the oriental physiognomy, seemed to say, "Ah ! if we 
were not commanded to be humble, I would soon show you that 
my knowledge is yet greater than I show." 

" As you are French," said he, addressing me, you probably 
know the Abbe de La Mennais?* 3 "Certainly, I know him," re- 
plied I boldly, curious to see what they thought of him in Ar- 
menia. " Well then, when you see him," said the monk, " tell 

him that his book " He stopped, throwing a suspicious 

glance at the abbe, and then finished his sentence, which was most 
probably commenced in a different spirit, thus : " Tell him that his 
last book has given us much sorrow." " Ah ! but/' said the abbe, 
who, although a Venetian, has as much penetration as a Greek, " do 
you not know, my brother, that M. de La Mennais is an extremely 
proud man, and that he thinks all Europe ought to take cognizance 
of his opinions ? Do not you know that he is quite capable of think- 
ing your convent only an imperceptible fragment of his auditory r" 

"A Carlist, he is a Carlist," said Father Hieronymus, shaking 
his head. " Parbleu, how strange it seems to me, to hear these 
subjects discussed in this place, and this country," said I to the 
abbe, whilst the monk's attention was occupied by Beppa, who 
was carelessly passing her little fingers over the brilliant colours of 
the Greek paintings on the margins of the Armenian's great manu- 
script bible. u You will see that he will speak against La Mennais, 
if he feels distrustful of us — so excite him a little." " Do not you 
think, my father," said I to the monk, " that M. de La Mennais is a 
great sacred poet ?" " Poet, poet !" said he, with an alarmed air, 
" you are not then aware of the judgment of his holiness ?" " No,'' 
said I. " Well then, my son, know that this last book is abomi- 
nable, and that all good christians are forbidden to read it." " Un- 
happily, I did not know that," said I, " and I have read it without 
thinking any evil." " That misfortune may have happened to manv 
others also," said the abbe smiling. " M. de La Mennais' genius is 
of such a dangerous character, that one may read all his productions 
without seeing any danger." " Doubtless," said the monk, " and it is 
only after having read them, and reflected upon them that one sees 
the serpent concealed under the flowers of perdition." " This is 
what happened to you after reading them, is it not my brother ?" 



S8 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

said the able. " 1 did net say I had read them,'* said the monk. 
" I might perhaps have read them without being very culpable, as 
von may judge ; the Abbe La Mennais came here after his inter- 
view with the pope, and he conversed with me. He was seated 
just where you now are. If I were to live a hundred years, 
I should never forget his face, his voice, nor his words. He made 
a great impression upon me I confess, and I saw immediately that 
he was one of those men, who can, if they will, serve religion 
powerfully. I imagined that he had re-entered the bosom of the 
church in good faith, and that henceforth he would be one of its 
most orthodox defenders. What could you expect ? He spoke so 
well ! he spoke as he writes. . . . at least they say, he writes well," 
added the Armenian, still suspicious of the abbe's ironical smile. 
" His effect upon me was such," continued he, " that I begged him 
to send me the first work he published." " And he sent it to you ?" 
14 1 did not say he had sent it to me," said the monk directly. " If 
he had sent it to me, it would not have been my fault. Who 
could foresee that so pious a man would write an abominable book.*' 
M But are you sure the book is abominable ?'' said I. " How ! am 
I sure ?" "But if you have not read it ?" "But the pope's circular !" 
'•Ah! I forgot that," said I. " Until that circular came," said 
the monk, " like you, I was in an error as to M. de La Mennais. 
I said to my brethren, see what ineffable grace God has bestowed 
upon this holy man, see how an instant of doubt and suffering has 
been replaced in him by holy and ardent faith. This is the effect 
of his interview with the pope." " So, you still said that after read- 
ing the book," said the abb6, persevering in his teazing. " I do 
not say that I said it then," said the monk ; "and beside what if 
I had said it, I had not then received the circular." " This cir- 
cular provokes me very much/' said I to the monk. " See now, I 
also was enthusiastic for the book, and for the author ; I felt whilst 
reading it, a deeper faith glow within me ; the love of God, the 
hope of seeing his kingdom established on this earth, had trans- 
ported me to the foot of the eternal throne. Never had I prayed 
with so much fervour ; I felt almost, oh ! desire almost unheard of 
in the present day, the thirst of martyrdom." M Did it not produce 
the same effect upon you, my father }". If I had not received the 
pope's circular/' said the monk with a vexed and agitated air. 



' LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 89 

*' But what would you have ? When the pope declares the book 
is contrary to religion, to morals, and to the government of . . . . of 
. . . . "He struck his forehead without being able to remember the 
name of Louis Philippe. — This was the only moment when he 
showed the Armenian and the monk. 

° The French/' continued he, " are very obstinate in their poli- 
tical opinions. M. de La Mennais is a Carlist." " Do you quite 
understand what a Carlist is, father," said I. "It seems/' said 
he, "that it is something very contrary to the pope's opinion.'' 
t( Upon my word, I cannot understand all this," said I, in a low 
voice to the abbe, " either this Armenian has a strange confusion 
in his head, or the pope fears the Juste Milieu as much as the Arme- 
nian monks fear the pope." " I beg your pardon/' said brother 
Hieronymus, approaching with an air of curiosity, " perhaps I may 
have wounded your private opinions by speaking in this manner." 
As I scarcely knew what to reply, the abbe touched my elbow 
saying — " Do not you hear that brother Hieronymus asks you what 
your private opinions are r" " Really/' said I, " I have no other 
than this, the world is perishing, and religion dying away." ' ' Alas ! 
yes, religion will be lost entirely if we do not take eare," said the 
Armenian, " new doctrines infiltrate themselves little by little into 
our ancient truth, like water through the pores of marble, and 
those who might be the beacons of faith, use their light only to. 
lead the flock astray. As for myself," said he, " speaking in 
a confidential manner, I have a great wish, and almost decided 
project of asking permission to go and find the Abbe de La Mennais, 
wherever he may be, and supplicate him, in the name of religion, in 
the name of his glory, in the name of the friendship I felt for him, to 
re-enter the bosom of the holy Roman church, and to correct his opi- 
nions. I have so much to say to him," added he naively, "lam sure 
I should succeed in converting him." The abbe turned away to con- 
ceal a mocking laugh, and then made the round of the cabinet, 
whilst the monk followed him with his oriental eyes, so beautiful, so 
brilliant, which seemed to partake both of the nature of the cat and of 
the eagle. When the abbe had pretended to look at all the objects of 
natural history, he went out, and Beppa begged the Armenian to read 
her some lines from the oriental manuscripts lying on the table, that 
she might listen and compare the harmony of these languages, so 



i) LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

unknown to her ears. I left the doctor with her, just as they be- 
gan to feel quite satisfied with Syriac, and to taste the Chaldaic a 
little, and went to rejoin the abbe, whom I found walking with an 
abstracted air in the cloister, along arcades opening upon meadows 
full of sunshine and flowers. " See what it is to endeavour to be shar- 
per than one's neighbour/ ' said I laughing, " you wish to show off, 
a.id you have been taken for a spy : — abbe that is well done I" 

He did not answer me, and apparently went on conversing with 
some imaginary speaker. 

" You will not go," said he, adding a word of patois answering 
to our — plus souvent. " You say so, but you will never do it, you 
will never leave all this." He looked at and pointed to the gardens 
and galleries of the convent. Turning round, he saw me, and burst 
out laughing. "The thought of this monk who wishes to go and 
convert M. de la Mennais keeps running in my head," said he ; 
" what do you think of it }" " What would you bet/' said I, " that if 
the pope charged you with such a mission ; you would not be so 
very unwilling to fulfil it." "I should think so," answered he, " do 
you believe that to see and talk with such a man would be a thing 
to be despised in the life of a poor priest V M And what would 
you say to him ?" " That I admire him, that I have read him, 
and that I am unhappy." M That is no reason for breaking those 
arbutus trees which have done nothing to you, nor for tormenting 
this kind monk, whom you have frightened by your priest's bands, 
and who thinks himself obliged to deplore the errors of one whom 
perhaps he admires as much as you do." " This monk ? He pre- 
tends to be interested in things for which he really cares nothing. 
They are learned and polite, but above all they are still monks, 
and all that passes outside their walls is perfectly indifferent to 
them. So long as they are allowed to enjoy their riches peace- 
ably, they will repeat in all servility the watchword of the power 
which protects them, it matters little to them whether it be a civil 
or religious power ; and you may believe that they have a sove- 
reign yet more sacred than the pope, the Emperor Francis who 
gave them this convent and fertile little island, where Lord Byron 
came to study the Oriental tongues, and which M. de Marcellus 
has lately visited, as we may see by the beautiful verses he has 
written in the traveller's album." " I know a stanza of his no 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 91 

less beautiful,'' said I, " that one which he improvised and wrote 
with his own hand, at the foot of the statue of Victory at Brescia. 
This is it. 

M She runs! — she flies ! — dispensing glory': — 

This noble statue of victory ! — 
And almost tempts one to adore. 

Yes ! — Even as I gaze my fill, 

I cannot help admiring still ; — 
Though I've seen Rome before." 
f< I wager that M. de MareeUus cannot endure M. de la 
Mennais," said the abbe ; " and that he refutes him vic- 
toriously. " " What does that concern you, malicious shaven 
crown ?" replied I ; " leave M. de MareeUus improvising stanzas 
all along Italy ; let these poor monks enjoy their repose, purchased 
at the price of so much violence and ferocious persecution which 
their country has suffered from the Turks. Is not the care thev 
take in the education of young Armenians, and to preserve by 
their press the remains of their language, which possesses admi- 
rable historians and poets, a noble and useful labour Y % " But 
they charge both their books and their lessons very dear, and yet 
they are very rich. One of their pupils went to America a 
few years since and made his fortune, and left them four millions." 
" Well, well, so much the better/' said I, " luxury is a necessary 
for them, and now they have it. Tell me abbe, if you can ima- 
gine a convent without rare flowers, columns of porphyry, mosaic 
pavements, without a library, and without pictures ? Monks 
without all these refinements would be impure beings whom we 
should certainly never come to visit. For my own part I am very- 
sorry that those marvellous convents of olden time, those veritable 
museums of the relics of arts and sciences, have been pillaged to 
enrich French generals and army agents, men killers and robbers. 
I deplore the loss of that race of old monks, pale with study and 
who exhausted all human knowledge, till they had not where- 
withal to exercise the power of their intellect, but the dreams of 
alchemy and astrology. These scientific instruments and this 
laboratory had transported me back to the poetical times of clois- 
tered life, accursed be this babbling monk, with his curious 
politics, and M. de MareeUus with his sublime verses which 
have so abruptly called me back to the present time!" "You 



92 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

laugh at all this, frivolous as you are/' said the abbe, frowning, 
•' and you are right, for our age merits no longer anything but 
contempt and irony. Woe to him, who has yet faith in anything 
here ! Consume thyself uselessly in thine iron circle, oh bright 
torch of intellect ! A burning faith, and dreams of divine 
grandeur may in vain consume the heart and brain of the believer. 
Men smile and pass onwards with indifference. Ah ! I laugh 
like a fool !" He turned abruptly and went away under the vine 
trellices. I wished to follow him, for his melancholy troubled 
me. But I saw a gold-fish passing in the water, darting in chase 
of a seppia, and curious to see the singular defence of this poor 
deformed animal against such a skilful swimmer, I leaned over 
the brink. I saw the calamajo or inkstand as the seppia is called 
here, discharge his fluid into the enemy's face, who made a gri- 
mace of great disgust, and swam away much disappointed. The 
calamajo committed a few agreeable gambols on the sand after 
his own fashion ; but this amusement w T as not of long duration. 
The gold-fish came back traitorously, and seizing him from behind, 
carried him off into deep water before he had time to use his 
ingenious stratagem again. This warfare made me forget that of 
the pope and M. de la Mennais, and I remained bronzing myself 
in the sun a full quarter of an hour in the unintellectual occupa- 
tion of watching some plants where two or three thousand of little 
shell fish were living in close friendship. This society appeared 
in a most flourishing condition, when a bold sea gull came, and 
under my very eyes, overturned it with a stroke of his wing 
and nearly destroyed it. "Then nothing can quietly exist/' 
thought I, recalling the abbe s mournful reflections. I went to 
seek him, but to my great surprise, I found him laughing heartily m 
stroking his beard, and reading with an air of great satisfaction 
some lines which he had just been writing on the sun dial with a 
piece of slate. I leaned over his shoulder and read the Venetian 
verses he had composed, and of which I have attempted a trans- 
lation such as it is. 

THE ENEMY OF THE POPE, 

" Rest in peace, my brethren, and leave the pope to arrange his 
own quarrels. The thunders of Rome are now extinct, and the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 03 

fire of anger now burns vainly in the entrails of the men of God. 
Their anathema is now an empty sound of which the wind makes 
its sport as of the foam of the troubled sea. The heretic is now 
no longer obliged to seek refuge in the mountains, and weary the 
sole of his foot in flying from the vengeance of the church. 
Faith has become what Jesus willed it to be ; — a hope offered to 
free souls, and not a yoke imposed by the rich and the powerful 
of this world. Rest in peace my brethren, God does not espouse 
the quarrels of the pope. 

" Imprudent are those who try to reconcile them ! You see not 
the evil you would do to the church by stifling this rebellious voice. 
You know not that the pope is well content and happy to pos- 
sess an enemy ; what would he not give to have two, for another 
Luther to draw crowds after his footsteps. But the world is now 
indifferent to theological disputes ; it reads the pleadings of the 
heretic for they are beautiful ; but it does not read the judgments 
of the pope, for they are Catholic, and nothing more. Read 
them, my brethren, since the pope orders you to do so, but pray 
also softly for the enemy of the pope. 

" You have laboured enough, you have suffered enough in this 
world, remnant of the most ancient people in the world ! Your 
hoary beards are yet stained with the blood of your brethren, and 
the snows of Mount Ararat, where the sacred ark rested, are yet 
reddened to their summit. The Turkish scimitar has shaved your 
heads to the bone, and the infidel has walked ancle deep in the 
blood of the children of Japhet. Suspicion which so often 
wrinkles your brows, is the seal left there by persecution. But 
comfort yourselves my brethren, and remember that there is much 
difference now between the power of a Roman pope, and that of 
a Turkish cadi of an Armenian village. Rest in peace, and be 
sure that the pope prays for his enemy for fear he should be with- 
drawn from him by God. 

" The deluge of blood has'ceased, your ark has touched on fertile 
shores ; quit not your happy island. Cultivate your flowers and 
gather your fruits. See your grapes are already blushing into 
ripeness, and loaded vines bend over the waters, as though to 
drink after a fatiguing day. All is couleur de rose here, the laurels, 



94 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

the marble, the waters, and the heavens. Each morning you salute 
the sun which rises over the mountains of your distant country, and 
in his rays you inhale the dew of your native summits. Why 
should you wish to disquiet your peaceful souls t Instruct the 
orphans of your brethren in the language spoken by the earliest of 
mankind, and especially relate to them the history of your slavery, 
that they may cherish the liberty for which you have so dearly 
paid. But speak not to them of the enemy of the pope ; that is 
quite needless, alas ! Before they are men, the church will be at 
peace 5 and the successor of the Capellari will no longer have an 
enemy under the sun. 

" Best in peace, my brethren, for God has placed his bow in the 
clouds. From the unknown w r orld beyond your islet, a messenger 
has come to you ; you took him for a dove of peace, so sweet his 
voice, so beautiful his aspect ; but the pope tells you, that the 
dove is a raven. Say ye, as the pope says, oh, ye sons of the 
prudent Noah ! But if the enemy of the pope, struck by some 
tempest, returns some day to take his seat under your fig-tree, pass 
gently behind and through the foliage, incline towards him that 
lovely fruit with the torn mantle.-'' The swallows of the Adriatic 
will not fly to repeat it at Borne. If he enters your chapel, let 
him bend his lofty brow before your Madonna. She was painted 
by a Turk, and yet she is very lovely and very Christian. Perhaps 
she will hear the prayer of the arch-heretic ; but if she should con- 
vert him to the Boman church, boast not of the miracle achieved 
under your roof, brother Hieronymus, it is you then, who, under 
penalty of excommunication, would be forced to declare yourself 
the enemy of the pope ! " 

" And yourself, abbeY' said I to him, " could not you per- 
haps be tempted to become the enemy of the pope ? Does not 
this strange character tempt your pride by some dangerous pro- 
mise ? But it is a part more difficult to play in these times, 
than to improvise a satire ; — mind that ! The part is a grave 
one to assume, and needs more than an eloquent priest ; a great 
character is requisite to bear the standard of revolt in the council. 

* El fiyo col tabaro stropazzo — the fig with a torn mantle — is a Venetian 
expression much used by the people. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. §5 

» 

Respect in silence the diess you wear, unless you really feel your- 
self also marked by the fatal seal of a great destiny. " 

The abbe, without perceiving the fatuity of his answer, and 
yielding naively to a mournful pre- occupation of mind, replied, 
" Better a hundred times would it have been to be a strummer of 
guitars at the toilet of the Cydalises, to pass one's life in laughter 
and in making bouts rimfe, than to suffer under the weight of the 
reflections which weary this poor brain. Oh ! La Mennais, where 
art thou ? Oh! Capellari, what doest thou? Fiom this black cas- 
sock, the shroud of all our past glories, can but one man free him- 
self ? all those buried in its folds, must thev descend without 
honour into the oblivion of the tomb ?" 

" Oh ! my dear abbe/' said I, pressing his hand, " take care of 
what is passing within you ; beware of the demon of pride ! Efface 
your verses : here comes Hieronymus ; leave this monk his tran- 
quil prudence, and his obscure happiness. Do not waken the 
sleeping serpent within him ; who can tell, how often he also has 
dreamed of becoming a man ? Let intelligence, the queen of the 
new world, alone ; she is approaching with giant steps, and will 
make us all what I can foresee, without your help or mine. ..." 

When we returned by the asylum for lunatics, Beppa complained 
that we had gone this way twice. " I detest their shrieks," said 
she, " they always make me feel ill, and my suffering does not 
soften their's." " They do not always shriek," said I, showing 
her the old man, whom we had seen two hours beforehand. His 
countenance was pale and mournful, and his attitude the same ; 
and he was still contemplating the waves. " That is worse even 
than if he cried out," said Beppa ; " Great God ! what a frightful 
face ! — what calm despair ! What does he dream of, and at what 
is he looking ? What thoughts are passing in that bald head, 
which feels not even the rays of the sun ; they fall as heavy as 
lead, and he has been supporting them these two hours." " And, 
perhaps, he bears them thus every day," said the doctor ; "I knew 
a madman who imagined himself an eagle, and who gazed at the 
sun with such obstinacy that he lost his sight. In his blindness 
his lunacy was more confirmed than ever ; he believed he still saw 
the luminous disk, and pretended, even in the darkness of night, to 
see his chamber inundatedjwith dazzling brilliancy." " I hope to 



96 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

God," said Beppa, " that this one may have some ridiculous 
mania of this sort, for then he would not suffer ; but I fear much 
that he is not now mad, and is only feeling his captivity. How he 
gazes at the horizon ! Poor being, never shalt thou reach even 
the first wave of the Adriatic, and yet in thy brain, perhaps, there 
is a volcano which would urge thee to the end of the world." 
" And, perhaps, a hairsbreadth of difference in the thickness of his 
brain," said the doctor, " might have made him a man of genius, 
filling the universe with his name. Perhaps, there are moments 
when he feels this, and realizes that he must end his days in a 
lunatic asylum ! M " Let us row on," said Beppa; " look ! — the 
abbe's brow is contracting/' 

The moon was rising in heaven, when, after dining and talking 
at some length in a cafe, we arrived at the Piazzetta. " That son 
of a dog, whose mother was a cow, will not move away, then, to- 
night ?" growled Catullo, who was misanthropically tipsy that 
evening. i£ To whom is this genealogical apostrophe addressed ?" 
said the doctor. Looking round, he saw a Turk, who had taken 
off his slippers, and part of his dress, and was kneeling on the 
lower step of the Tragvetto, so near the water, that he wetted his 
beard and his turban at each of the invocations he was addressing 
to the moon. u Ah, ah!" said the doctor, " the gentleman has 
chosen a strange place for his orisons ; the hour for prayer must 
have sounded just as he was calling a gondola, and he must have 
been obliged to throw himself with his face to the ground, on hear- 
ing the hour strike/' 

" It is not so," said the abbe*, " he went there that no one 
might be able to pass before him, and thereby disturb his prayen 
for his religion obliges him to recommence each time a person 
passes between him and the moon." 

Speaking thus, he put his cane across CatuhVs legs who was 
just putting his foot on shore, and going to repulse the Turk 
brutally in order to effect our landing. " Leave him alone," 
said the abbe, " for he also is a believer/' " And what will you 
do," said the gondolier, " if the unbaptised animal will not move ?" 

In fact, the Tragudto being surrounded by two little wooden 
railings, we could not land without disturbing the Mussulman 
slightly. 



LETTERS -OF A TRAVELLER. 97 

" Well then," said the abbe, " we will wait till he has finished, 
sit down, and be quiet.'' Catullo went to sit down upon the poop, 
shaking his head, it was easy to see he totally disapproved the 
abbe's principles. 

" What does it matter," said he, " whether the Madonna is called 
Mary or Phingari ? The virgin-mother of the Divinity is the same al- 
legoricalthought through all. It is the faith which gives birth to all reli- 
gions and to all virtues." "You are quite heretical this evening, abbe,'' 
said Beppa ; " for my part I do not like the Turks, not because they 
worship the moon, but because they keep their women in slavery." 
"To say nothing of their cutting their slaves' heads off," said Catullo, 
with great indignation. " My uncle," said the doctor, " witnessed 
something which this Turk's prayer recalls to my recollection. One 
day, about fifty years since, a Mussulman was overtaken by the 
hour of prayer, just as he was walking on the quay of the Esclavons. 
He stopped in the midst of the quay, and after taking off his slip - 
pers, began his customary devotions. A troop of little rascals, 
who saw this spectacle, apparently for the first time, began laugh- 
ing, and surrounded him with great curiosity, repeating his genu- 
flections and the movements of his lips with mockery. The Turk 
did not appear to notice this raillery, and continued his prayer. 
Encouraged by this, the rascals redoubled their grimaces, and some 
few became so bold as to pick up stones and cast at his face. The 
believer remained impassible, his face did not show the least alte- 
ration, nor did he omit a word of his prayer. But, when it was 
finished, he rose, took the first unfortunate fellow he could lay 
hands on, and plunged his dagger into his breast with as much 
tranquillity as if he had been a chicken ; and then retired without 
uttering a word, leaving the bloody corpse on the spot where his 
prayer had been profaned. The senate consulted as to this mur- 
der, and it was decided that the Turk had exercised a legitimate 
vengeance. No proceedings were instituted against him." 

This recital, to which Catullo listened, his head bowed down, 
with a mortified air, evidently inspired him with the greatest re- 
spect for the idolator ; for when the Turk had finished his prayer," 
not only did he wait till he had assumed his dolman, but he ac- 
tually handed him his slippers. The infidel gave no sign of grati- 



93 LETTERS OF x\ TRAVELLER. 

tude, did not even seem to be aware of our politeness, and went to 
join his companions, who were sitting smoking round the column 
of St. Theodore. " Those are Muscadins" said the abbe, "aswe 
passed them, they are merchants settled at Venice, and whom the 
atmosphere of our civilization has corrupted, they drink wine, deny 
the prophet, do not visit the mosque, nor unsandal themselves to bow 
before Phingari : but they are none the better for that, for they have 
no faith, they have lost all the poetic naivete of their own idolatry, 
without opening their soul to the austere truth of the gospel. But 
in spite of all that, they are honest men, because they are Turks, 
and a Turk cannot be a rascal.' ' 

After separating to get a few hours repose, we met again at the 
feast or sagra of the Redeemer. Every parish in Venice vies with 
the others in the celebration feast of its patron saint ; all the city 
joins in the devotion and rejoicings which take place on this occa- 
sion. The island of Giudecca, in which the church of the Re- 
deemer is situated, being one of the richest parishes, has one of 
the grandest fetes. The portal is decorated with an immense 
garland of fruits and flowers, a bridge of boats is constructed across 
the Giudecca canal, which in this part is almost an arm of the sea ; 
all the quay is covered with confectioners' shops, tents for coffee, 
and those kitchens a la bivouac called fritole, where the little turn- 
spits look like grotesque demons in the midst of flames and whirl- 
winds of a smoke so redolent of boiling grease, that its acrid fumes 
must almost catch the breath of those passing three leagues off 
at sea. The Austrian government prohibits dancing in the open 
air, which would sadly injure the gaiety of the festa amongst any 
other people ; but happily the Venetians have an immense fund of 
cheerfulness in their disposition : their capital sin is gourmandise, 
but a lively and talkative gourmandise, which has nothing in com- 
mon with the heavy digestion of the Germans and the English ; 
the Muscat wines of Istria, which cost only six sous a bottle, in- 
duce an expansive and merry intoxication. 

All these shops of eatables are ornamented with foliage, with 
streamers, and coloured paper balloons serving as lanterns ; all the 
gondoks have the same decorations, and those belonging to rich 
people are adorned with remarkable taste. These paper lanterns 
are of all shapes — here they are acorns falling in luminous festoons 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. .99 

round a canopy of variegated stuff, there they seem like alabaster 
vases of antique forms, ranged round a canopy of white muslin, whose 
transparent curtains envelope the guests ; for people sup in the 
gondolas, and through the gauzy screen may be seen plate and 
wax candles, mingled with flowers and crystals. Young men 
dressed as women half open the curtains, throwing forth imperti- 
nent jests at the passers by. On the prow is an immense lantern 
in the shape of a tripod, a dragon or an Etruscan vase, into which 
a curiously dressed gondolier throws every now and then a powder 
which bursts forth into red flames and blue sparks. 

All these barks, all these lights which are reflected in the water, 
and which crowd against each other and run in every direction along 
the illuminated shore, produce a magical effect. The humblest 
gondola, with a fisherman's family, supping noisily, looks beautiful 
with its four lanterns suspended over their tipsy heads, and with 
its lantern at the prow, which hanging from a taller lance than the 
others, floats, rocked by the breeze like a golden fruit borne on by 
the waves. The young men row and eat alternately, the father of 
the family talks Latin at the desert, the Latin of the gondoliers, 
which is a collection of plays upon words, and pretended slang 
translations, often witty and always droll ; the children slumber, 
and the dogs bark and provoke each other as they pass. 

What is still beautiful and really republican in the manners at 
Venice is the absence of etiquette and the affability of the aristocrats. 
No where else perhaps are there such marked distinctions between 
the different classes of society, and no where are they effaced in 
greater good faith. A noble may be recognized in the depth of 
the gondola simply by his manner of putting the glass up and 
down. A Jewish stockbroker may endeavour most scrupulously 
to imitate the manners of a dandy, but he will never be mistaken 
for the most simply dressed descendant of an antique family ; and a 
hired gondolier, whatever he may do, will never have, in his manner 
of rowing, the bearing, at once majestic and elegant, of those who 
are called Palace gondoliers, i.e. gondoliers of private families. But 
there is no public fete w T hich does not reunite the people without 
distinction, privilege, or antipathy. The people, who make a jest of 
everything, jest at the misfortunes of the nobility, and at Carnival 
time one of the favourite disguises consists in enveloping themselves 



100 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

in an immense perruque, a ridiculous coat, and creeping along the 
streets, a sword by the side, with muddy stockings and worn-out 
shoes, offering protection, riches, and palaces to all the passers by, 
This masquerade is called playing L'lllustrissimo. It has become 
classical, like Policinello, Brighella, Giacometto, and Pantalon.* 
But in spite of this cruel derision, the populace love their old 
nobles, the men of the last days of the republic, who were at once 
so rich, so prodigal, so duped, so magnificent, and so vain, so 
ignorant and so good-hearted, the men who chose Marini for their 
last doge, who, when he was told of Napoleon's approach, wept 
like a child, and sent him the keys of the city, at the very moment 
when the conqueror was^retracing his steps, believing Venice to be 
impregnable. 

They have always been affable and paternal with the populace, 
and never shun their rough rejoicings, because at Venice they are 
really not repulsive as elsewhere, and there is wit even in their 
vulgarity ; the people respond to this confidence, and there has 
never been an instance in which a noble has been insulted in a 
tavern, or even in the confusion of a regatta. All goes on pele 
mele, some laugh at the gravity of others, whilst the others are 
amused at the extravagance of the laughers. The closed gondola 
of the old noble, the splendid bark of the banker or merchant, and 
the rough boat of the vegetable seller, supping and sailing about 
the canal, strike one another and intermingle, so that the rich 
man's orchestra joins its sounds to the harsh songs of the poor. 
Sometimes the rich man stops his musicians in order to listen to 
the coarse songs of the poor, and sometimes it is a poor man who 
follows a gondola to listen to the music of the rich. 

This good understanding is everywhere visible ; the absence 
of horses and carriages in the streets, and the necessity for 
every one to travel by water, contributes much to the equality 
of manners. No one splashes the dirt over or runs against his 
fellow. There is not at Venice the humiliation of walking on foot 
whilst a carriage passes, no one is forced to disturb himself for 
another, and all agree to yield place. At the coffee-houses, all sit 
out of doors. This is ordained by the climate, and it is not the 
great ones but the chilly ones who remain at home. A fisherman 
* Characters in the old Ilr.lian Pantomimes. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 101 

from Chioggia, rests his ragged elbows at the same table as a noble 
lord. There are cafes favoured by the fashionables, by artists, by 
nobles : every one wishes to be able to meet his own circle every 
evening, but on any opportunity, (which the heat renders very 
frequent) the first tavern is entered, and no one dreams of criticising 
or even remarking a lady of bon ton, who may be sitting in a tavern 
drinking a sernata, or eating fresh fish. 

The Venetian ladies are coquettish, and fond of dress. The 
richness of their toilettes contrasts singularly with the freedom of 
their habits. Is it to this aristocratic simplicity that the license 
with which the lower orders of men look upon them is to be at- 
tributed ? A hackney coachman, at Paris, is not a man to the lady 
who hires his carnage, but, here, a gondolier remarks upon the 
ancle of every woman who steps from his gondola. That sentence 
of La Bruyere, " A gardener is a man in the eyes of a nun, only," 
would be nonsense at Venice. Certainly Beppa has not a coquettish 
face, nor flirting manners, yet the other day, as we passed a gon- 
dola full of peasants, one of them who was reciting, or rather mur- 
dering, a strophe from Tasso, interrupted himself to point her out 
to his companions, saying, M Behold the beautiful Erminia!" 

The ostentation of the ancient nobility is still in the character of 
the population ; the custom of the Sagra is a proof of it ; every 
year the priest and his chapter deliberate and choose a director for 
the feast of the patron saint, nearly in the same way they select 
an alms beggar at Paris. The office of this director is to apply the 
produce of the annual almsgathering and offerings to the decoration 
of the church, and the illuminations and the music of the choir ; 
they generally choose the richest and the most generous. Whether 
he is devout or not, he alwavs places his ambition in surpassing 
his predecessor in magnificence, and, if the revenue of the parish 
does not suffice, he contributes from his own funds. So the people 
are well amused, the priests satisfied, and bestow " handsfull " of 
indulgences and absolutions on the director, his family and his 
friends. A few days since, a private gentleman spent in this man- 
ner more than 15,000 francs for a mass. 

At two o'clock, a.m. as we had taken no provisions in the gon- 
dola, because, after all, it is the most inconvenient manner of eating 



102 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

in the world, we re-entered the city, and went to sup at the cafe 
of St. Marguerite, which also boasted of its coloured paper lan- 
terns suspended from the trellices. We seated ourselves at the 
bottom of the garden, and the abbe ordered some soles, dressed 
w T ith currants, and preserved citron. Jules and Beppa got so ani- 
mated, both in head and stomach, with Braganza wine and clove 
Macaroons, that they would not allow us to think of returning 
home. We were obliged to go to see the sun rise at Torcello. 
Catullo being half drunk, and incapable of rowing even a quarter 
of the way, proposed seeking his comrades, Caesar and Gam- 
bierazzi ; the one having been sworn in a Nicoloto the preceding 
month, and the other having fulfilled, with Catullo, the office of 
the high priest by sprinkling the neophyte's head with sepia 
ink, and dictating the form of the oath. They had all been 
committed to prison, as an expiation of these republican and 
pagan ceremonies ; but I think I have related all this to you 
in one of my letters, I was impatient to behold these illus- 
trious gondoliers. But alas ! celebrated men are often quite 
provokingly contrary to the ideas one has formed of them ! 
Caesar the neophyte is humpbacked, Gambierazzi the pontiff 
has legs like the screw of a press. Catullo is the most 
agreeable of the three, he is only lame with one leg, and 
never fails to say, speaking of Lord Byron, " I have seen him, 
he was lame." Alas ! alas ! the divine poet Catullus was a 
Venetian ; who knows whether the lame drunkard who conducts 
our gondola is not one of his direct descendants ? 

These three monsters, assisted by the wind and the sail, took us 
very quickly to Torcello, and the sun was just rising as we 
buried ourselves in the verdant pathways of this lovely island. 

Of all those little islands where the inhabitants of Venetia 
took refuge, at the time of the irruption of the barbarians into 
Italy, Torcello is the one which retains the greatest traces of 
this epoch of terror and emigration. The church and a manu- 
factory in ruins are the remaining vestiges of the town which 
the refugees built there. The church betrays, both by its irre- 
gular construct wm and the mixture of ancient riches and com- 
mon materials with which it is built, the haste with which it was 
erected. The ruins of a temple at Aquilea were employed, with- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 103 

drawn from the remains of this capital of the Venetian pro- 
vinces. The nave has still the form of a pagan temple, and the 
brick roof, supported by columns of precious Greek marble, is co- 
vered by brambles which hang in festoons and escape through 
all the crevices of the cornices. The cupola and the interior 
parts are covered with mosaics executed by Greek artists. The 
mosaics, which date from the eleventh century, are as hideous 
in design as are all those of that age of decline, but remark- 
able for their solidity. It is from Venice that the mosaic art 
spread through Italy, and the golden back grounds which give 
so much relief to the figures, and remain so intact, so brilliant, 
in spite of the dust of ages, are formed by small pieces of gilded 
glass, which are manufactured at Murano, a neighbouring isle. 
By slow degrees the art of design, lost in Greece, but reco- 
vered in Italy, was applied to the improvement of mosaic ; and 
the last which were executed, in the Church of St. Mark, by the 
brothers Zuccati, were designed by Titian. 

The abbe endeavoured to persuade us that, the mosaic ma- 
donnas, of the eleventh century, had an austere and powerful 
character, where the sentiment of faith spoke more loudly than 
in the poetical grace of the happier times of painting. It must 
be owned that in these large features of the Greek type, 
with their large well cut eyes and aquiline profiles, there is 
something firm and imposing, like the precepts of the new faith. 
The abbe returned to his fancy, rather pagan though it be, of 
making the virgin into a religious allegory. He wished to find 
the proofs of this idea in the various expressions which the re- 
vered figure received from the first artists, and to shew us in each 
of their favourite types the reflection of their own souls. Titian 
according to him, had revealed his strong and tranquil faith in 
the grand figure of Mary ascending to heaven in an attitude so 
firm, and with such a radiant look, whilst the golden clouds 
open, and Jehovah advances to receive her. 

Raphael and Correggio, lovers and poets, bestowed upon their 
Virgins a more melancholy sweetness, and a more human ten- 
derness for the Divinity; it is not only heaven upon which their 
contemplations are fixed, but it is Jesus, the God of forgiveness 
and love, whom they sacredly caress. 

g2 



104 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

And Giambellino and Vivarini, Beppa's favourite painters, 
have bestowed the naive youthfulness of their own hearts on 
their madonnettas. " Oh ? Giambellino/' exclaimed Beppa, 
" how I could have loved thee ! how would thy childlike fancies 
have charmed me ! what care I would have taken of thy fa- 
vourite goldfinch ? and how would I have listened in my dreams 
to the viol and mandoline of thy little angels, veiled with their 
long wings, agile, melodious and lovely as the wren. With what 
delight would I have breathed the odour of those delicate 
flowers, ravished from Paradise by thy hand, and nourished into 
bloom by the tears of Eve and of Mary. How should I have 
trembled, when kissing the light foliage floating over the golden 
tresses of thy pale cherubim ! How timidly should I have gazed 
upon thy youthful virgins, so pure, so holy, that human eyes 
seem to profane them ! I would have preserved the serenity 
of my soul, in order to resemble them." " Thou dost resemble 
them, Beppa !" cried the abbe, casting a lightning glance upon 
her. But he turned his eyes again immediately upon the grand 
and sombre Greek madonna, towering above our heads, the 
emblem of suffering and energy. M Oh faith, so sad, so sublime !" 
said he, smothering a sigh. The countenance of this excellent 
young man, expressed the satisfaction of a mournful triumph, 
and the smile of bitterness, which a generous indignation so 
often brings upon his lips, disappeared entirely. " Let them 
impose sacrifices upon me," he often says, " let them order me to 
vanquish and subdue rebellious imaginings, to thrust the seven 
darts into my own heart, which pierce the bosom of the Virgin ; 
let them condemn me to suffer ; it is well. But that which de- 
stroys me, is inaction; to feel one's very being useless, one's 
strength lost, to have nothing to combat, nothing to immolate." — 
I should not be surprised, if the abb£ does not sometimes wel- 
come even dangerous thoughts, and fatal sentiments, in order 
to have the joy of triumphing over them. 

The doctor went to repose himself in the middle of the 
nettles upon the curule-chair, formed of stone, upon which they 
say the Roman prretor sat, who was charged with collecting the 
tax from the fishermen of the Lagoons. Popular tradition has 
invested this chair with the name of Attila"s throne, although 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 105 

the barbarian conqueror, having made a vain attempt to in- 
vade these islands, and having seen his vessels wrecked at low 
water, amid the shallows, with whose navigable canals he was 
not - acquainted, had retired, abandoning even the easy con- 
quest of the peninsula of Chioggia. Guilio stopped to examine 
the curious shutters of the church, formed as in the eastern 
temples, of a large flat stone, turning on a pivot, and hinges. 

The abbe went to pay a visit to his brother, of Torcello, whose 
white priory, lost amongst the branches of its garden, made 
the romantic Beppa envious. I wandered alone, dreamily pluck- 
ing flowers for her, in the alleys of Torcello, more beautiful 
alas, than those of my own Valine Noire. A profusion of bril- 
liant wild convolvulus climbed along the hedges, and often formed 
arbours, more beautiful and graceful than if formed by the 
hand of man. Eight or ten houses, perhaps twenty, scattered 
amongst the orchards, sufficed for the whole of the population 
of the island. All the inhabitants had already left for the 
fisheries. An inconceivable silence reigned over this lavish 
nature, so fertile as scarcely to need attention from man, who 
here receives as a pure gift that which elsewhere he purchases 
with the sweat of his brow. Butterflies sported over the flowery 
carpet spread under my feet, and little accustomed, doubtless to 
the pursuit of children or naturalists, actually came to settle 
upon the bouquet I held in my hand. Torcello is a cultivated 
desert. Between the osier thickets, and bushes of althea, run 
little rivulets of salt water, where the petrel and the wild duck 
disport themselves joyously. Here and there a marble capital, 
a fragment of some sculpture of the lower empire, a beautiful 
Greek cross, broken to pieces, show themselves through the tall 
grass. The everlasting youth of Nature smiles in the midst of 
these ruins. The atmosphere was balmy, and the song of the 
grasshopper alone disturbed the religious quiet of the morning. 
Over my head was the loveliest sky in the world, two paces 
from me the best of friends. I closed my eyes, as I often do, 
when endeavouring to sum up the varied impressions of my 
excursions, and to compose a general tableau of the landscape 
I had just passed through. I cannot imagine how, instead of 
the convolvulus, the groves and marble of Torcello, I saw flat 



105 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

fields, blighted trees, dusty bushes, a grey heaven, a scanty vege- 
tation, obstinately tortured forth by the plough and the mattock, 
frightful buildings, ridiculous palaces, in a word, — France. "Ah, 
thou callest me then !" exclaimed I. At the same moment, a 
strange emotion of desire and repugnance affected me. Our 
native land! mysterious name, to which my thoughts have never 
turned, and which to me, as yet, offers only an impenetrable 
meaning, — is then'the memory of the past griefs thou hast evoked, 
sweeter than my present sentiments of joy ? Could I forget 
thee, even if I would ? and how is it that I do not even wish 
it? 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 107 






To JULES NERAUD. 

Nohaut, September, 18 54. 

How grateful I am to you, my old friend, for coming to see 
me immediately. I did not hope for such a pleasure, and I 
know that as your position is not altered, it is a great proof 
of friendship on your side. I have passed a happy day, my 
good Malgache, near you, and in the midst of my children, and 
my friends. I have laughed heartily at our former follies ; I 
have renewed our sly contests, I have been diverted by your 
conundrums. Again, after two years of absence, which to me 
seem two ages, I have entered into my former life, with a child's 
pleasure and an old man's joy. Well then, my poor friend, all 
this happiness has found its way into my worn and desolate 
heart for an entire day, but has neither cured it, nor restored 
its youth — it is a corpse revivified for a moment by galvanism, 
and which afterwards falls more lifeless than before. I have 
spleen, despair, in my soul, Malgache. I have said everything 
to myself I can and ought to say, I have endeavoured to attach 
myself to all around me. I cannot live. I have just said adieu 
to my country, to my friends. The world will never know what 
I have suffered, what my struggles have been, before I was 
driven to this point. In vain should I endeavour to make you 
comprehend my soul and my life : do not speak to me of that ; 
receive my adieu, and say nothing to me, it would be useless. 
Come sometimes to see me during my stay here, and speak of 
the past with me. I shall have some services to ask from you, 
and you will accept the trouble, as a proof of friendship. Think 
of me — and if my tomb should lie in your path, some day, stop 
there, and shed a few tears. Oh, pray for one, who perhaps 
was the only one who knew and appreciated your heart. 



308 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 



Monday Evening. 

Thanks, my good old friend, thanks for your letter ; no remedy 
can be more efficacious than the words of friendship and kind 
compassion, from which my pride can know no suffering. You 
know only a very small part of the sufferings of my life If 
fate should re-unite us for some hours, I will relate them to you; 
but what is most important, is not that you may know them, 
-but that your affection may lighten them. Yes, reasoning, re- 
presentations, reprimands, only embitter the heart that suffers, 
and a cordial grasp of the hand, is the most eloquent conso- 
lation. It may be, that my heart is weary, and my intellect 
injured by an adventurous life and false ideas, — but that is, then, 
the malady from which I am suffering, and all that is left for 
those who love me, is to lead me gently towards my tomb. 
Snatch the last thorns from my path, or at least strew some 
flowers round my grave, and greet my ears with sweet words 
of regret and pity. No ! your pity will not make me blush, my 
friends ; yours especially, old ruin, who have survived the storms 
of life, and who know its gnawing cares, and overpowering fa- 
tigues. My malady is one to be mourned over, not contradicted. 
If you cannot cure me, at least you can render my suffering 
less acute and death less dreadful. Heaven preserve me from 
disdaining your friendship, and reckoning it as of small account. 
But do you know what sorrows counterbalance these blessings ? 
Do you know that certain happiness has inspired a want in 
my soul, and that certain unhappiness has inspired it with dis- 
trust and discouragement. And you, ail of you are strong. 
For myself, I have energy, not strength. You tell me that instinct 
will keep me near my children : perhaps you are right, — that is 
the truest thing I have heard. I feel this instinct so deeply, 
that I have cursed it as an indestructible charm ; but often also 
have I blessed it, when pressing to my heart these two little 
creatures, innocent of all my sufferings. Write to me often, 
dear friend, be delicate and ingenious in telling me all that may 
do me good, but avoid giving me too harsh lessons. Alas, my own 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 109 

understanding is more severe than you would be, and it is this 
very clearsightedness which drives me to despair. May your 
heart, so good and great, whatever may be said to the contrary, 
inspire you with the skill to cure me. I came here to seek 
what fled from me elsewhere. Pedagogues abound everywhere, 
friendship is rare and prudent, and disembarrasses itself from a 
subject, better with a reproach or a jest, than with a tear or a 
kiss. Let yours be mild and generous ! Repeat to me, that 
your affection has followed me everywhere, and that in hours of 
discouragement, when I thought myself alone in the universe, 
there was one heart praying for me, that sent its guardian angel 
to reanimate me. 



Wednesday Evening. 

Let us write to each other every day, I beg of you. I feel that 
friendship alone can save me. 

I do not hope to be able to drag on existence. For the 
present moment my ambition is bounded by the hope of dying 
calmly, and without being driven to blasphemy at my last hour, 
like that innocent man who was guillotined in our town four or 
five years since, and who exclaimed upon the scaffold, "Ah! there 
is no God ! " You are religious, Malgache, and I am, also, I be- 
lieve. But I know not whether I ought to hope for something 
better than the weariness and sufferings of this life. What do 
you think of the next world ? It is this which stops me. It 
is quite certain to me, that I can achieve nothing in this, and 
there is nothing left for me to hope on earth. Bat shall I 
find repose after these thirty years of labour. Will the new 
destiny I enter upon, be a calm and endurable destiny ? Ah ! if 
God is good, at least he will grant a year of repose to my soul. 
Who knows really what repose is, and what renewal it might 
work in an intellect ! Alas ! if I could but repose myself here, 
near you, in the midst of my friends, in my native land, under 
the roof where I was educated, where I once passed such se- 
rene days ! But the life of man commences where it ought 
to finish. In his first years a happiness and a calm is accorded 



110 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

to him which he only enjoys in its after remembrance ; for, 
before he has laboured and sorrowed, before he has gone through 
his manhood's years, he knows not the value of his childish 
days. In your opinion, my friend, there will arrive for the wise 
man, a period, when this repose may be acquired by the will 
and reflection. Oh ! be sincere, I entreat you, and forget the 
part of the consoler which your friendship imposes upon you 
with me. Do not deceive me in the hope of curing me, for 
the more you cause deceitful hopes to bloom again under my 
feet, the more anger, the more grief shall I feel in losing 
them. Tell me the truth, are you yourself happy ? No, this is a 
foolish question, and happiness is a ridiculous word, represent- 
ing only an idea vague as that of a dream. But do you sup- 
port life willingly ? Should you regret it, if God should deliver 
you from it to morrow ? Should you weep the loss of anything 
but your children. For this instinctive affection as you so well 
call it, is the only one which despairing reason cannot shake. 
Tell me, oh ! tell me, what is it that passes within me, during these 
last ten years, and more, this disgust of everything, this gnaw- 
ing ennui, which succeeds my greatest enjoyments, and which 
possesses and crushes me more and more ? is it a malady of my 
brain, or is it a result of my destiny ? Am I terribly right in 
hating life, or am I horribly wrong in not accepting it ? Put 
aside all social questions, suppose even that we have no children, 
and that we have endured, each of us, the same portion of 
weariness and suffering. Do you believe, that from the very 
diversity of our organizations, we should each find the other 
at our present point, you reconciled to life. I more weary, more 
despairing than ever? Is there then in all of you a faculty 
which is wanting in me ? Am I not so well endowed as you, 
and has God denied to me that instinctive love of life which he 
has bestowed upon all creatures for the preservation of the 
species ? I see my mother : she has suffered materially, more 
than I ; her history is one of the most fatal, the most stormy I 
have ever heard related ; but her native strength has borne her 
through everything, her carelessness, her gaiety have outlived 
all storms. At sixty she is still young and beautiful, and every 
evening before sleeping, she prays to God to prolong her life. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. Ill 

Ah ! my God ! it is then good to live, why am not I thus 
formed ? My social position might be excellent ; I am independ- 
ent, the material embarrassments of my existence have ceased ; 
I can travel, satisfy all my fancies ; how is it that I have no more 
fancies ? 

Do not answer these questions, it is too soon. You do not 
know the events which have brought me to this moral state ; and 
for want of knowing and being able to judge correctly of the 
facts, you might perhaps conceive a false idea. But answer 
that which concerns yourself. You have suffered, you have 
loved, you are a being of elevated rank in the scale of intelli- 
gence, you have seen much, read much ; you have travelled, 
observed, reflected, and considered life under all its varied 
aspects. You have sunk down, you, whose destiny might have 
been a brilliant one, upon a little spot of earth, where you 
have found consolation for all, in planting trees and watering 
your flowers. You tell me that in the beginning you suffered 
much, that you had struggles with yourself to sustain, that you 
constrained yourself to physical exertions. Relate the history 
of this period to me at length ; and then tell me the result of 
all these struggles and of all this virtue. Are you calm, can 
you support the petty troubles of domestic life without bitter- 
ness and despair ? do you pass the night in sleep ? is there no 
demon hovering over your couch in an angelic shape, crying to 
thee M Love ! happiness ! life ! youth !" whilst your desolate heart 
replies, " It is too late. It might have been, but it was not !" 
Oh my friend, do you pass entire nights in weeping for your 
dreams, and repeating, " I have not known happiness ?" 

Oh, I know, I feel this must happen to you sometimes, and I 
am perhaps wrong to awake the idea of suffering which time 
and your own courage have subdued ; but it will be an oppor- 
tunity of exercising the strength you have acquired, if you relate 
to me how you have striven, and what result you have achieved. 
Ah ! if I could but become enthusiastic as you do, for a garden, 
a plant, an insect ! And yet I lose these things, and no one is 
better organized for the enjoyment of life than myself. I sympa- 
thize with all the grace and beauty of nature. I can, like you, 
look with delight on the wing of a butterfly for a long time. 



112 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

Like you too, I can inebriate myself with the perfume of a flower. 
1 should also like to build myself an ajoupa, and carry my books 
thither, but I could not remain there long, and flowers and insects 
could never console me for moral suffering. The contemplation 
of the snowy summits of Mont Blaac, the sight of those eternal 
snows, so immaculate, so sublime in their purity and tranquillity, 
sufficed for a few days of the last month, to shed upon my soul 
a serenity unknown for long. But scarcely had I crossed the 
frontiers of France, when this delicious calm vanished, like an 
avalanche, before the remembrance and aspect of my sorrows and 
physical ennui. The dust of the road, the stench of the diligence 
and the hideous nakedness of the land, sufficed to make me ex- 
claim. "Life is insupportable and man most miserable." And 
griefs, moral, real, profound, and incurable sprang up afresh. 

I nurse myself with the hope that, at least, I shall die reconciled 
with the past. In the air of one's native place, the silence of 
autumn, the magic of remembrance, in the heart of my friends 
beyond all, there is an influence strangely powerful. I walk a 
great deal, and either from weariness of body or mind, I sleep 
better than I have done for a year. My children, cause me sorrow 
even in the midst of the happiness they give me, they are my 
tyrants, the bonds which attach me to life, to an odious existence ! 
I would break these terrible bonds, but the fear of remorse re- 
strains me. And yet much might be said in my excuse if I could 
write the history of my heart. But it would be so long, so pain- 
ful !... . Good night — do you remember our adieux formerly under 
the great tree M the parting tree" We had been reading Les 
Natchez, and we used to say, every evening. " I wish thee a blue 
sky and hope." Hope of what ? 

Thursday. 

My days flow on mournful as death, and my strength gives 
way rapidly. The day before yesterday, I was pretty well, I felt 
in a kind of apathy not without charm. Weariness of heart and 
body was so complete in me, that there seemed scarcely any sensi- 
bility left. I accepted the ennui and the pleasures of the day, and 
did not say, as I had said every other day, " Can I exist through 
to-morrow ?" I had thrown myself back into the past, and 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 113 

realized this foolish illusion to the point of believing myself trans- 
ported back to those days which we have left behind. I was re- 
turning from the river with Rollinat and the children. It was ex- 
tremely hot, and the road very difficult, I felt a kind of happiness 
in labouring over this ploughed land, with Solange upon my 
shoulders. Maurice walked before us with his little friend, and 
the house dog, although ugly and melancholy, followed us in a 
manner so accustomed to us, so sure of his lodging, so necessarily 
attached to our steps, that to me he seemed to form quite a 
member of the family. Rollinat was laughing after his own 
fashion, and telling drolleries to my mother ; I came last with my 
burthen, dividing my thoughts between the difficulties of the way, 
and the remembrance of your advice. These are, said I, to my- 
self the pure and simple pleasures of which my friend boasts and 
wishes me to enjoy. I do not know why, but the fatigue, the 
children's cries of joy, my mother's gaiety, although all was in 
disunion with the sadness which was devouring me, and the 
misery which crushes me, all of this had still an indefinable charm 
for me. It reminded me of our journeys to the great tree, our 
mushroom gatherings in the meadows, and the early childhood of 
my son, whom I carried back to the house upon my shoulders. I 
almost forgot the terrible years of experience, activity and passion, 
which separate my present life from that time. 

But this delightful feeling, which I can only attribute to exte- 
rior circumstances, to atmospheric influences, to the delicious 
silence of the country, to the good humour of those surrounding 
me, soon ceased, and I sunk into my usual melancholy as I re- 
entered the house. 

Rollinat is one of the best and most perfect beings there is upon 
the earth ; kind, simple, equable, silent, sad, compassionate. I 
know no one whose daily and intimate communion is more beneficial; 
I know not if I love him more or less than you ; my heart is not 
strong enough for questioning or self knowledge, but I feel that the 
friendship I have for Alphonso, for Laura, for all of you. does not 
detract from that which I feel for each of you in particular. Only 
to these youthful beings I do not speak of my sorrows, whose hap- 
piness would be troubled by their recital. I speak of them only to 
Rollinat and to you. He neither gives me advice, nor encourage- 



114 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

ment, nor consolation, we exchange few words in the course of the 
day, we walk side by side in the vallies, or in my garden, drooping 
like two old men, wrapped up in a dumb grief, and understand each 
other without warning or explanation. In the evening we pace 
the garden until midnight ; this physical weariness is absolutely 
necessary for me, or I should not sleep, and also for him, as he 
suffers much from a nervous complaint. 

Then we relate to each other the details and sorrows of our lives. 
Sometimes we sink into profound silence, he looks at the stars and 
dreams of finding there an asylum for me, and I cast useless 
glances towards the dark shadows through which we walk. Their 
mysterious silence makes me sometimes shudder with fear, and it 
seems as though it were my spectre walking in my stead, in this 
spot, mournful as the grave. Then I pass my arm under his, as 
though to assure myself that I am still in the land of the living, 
and he replies to me with his deep and hollow voice, " you are ill, 
very ill." Notwithstanding the little encouragement his society 
gives me, for his disposition is only too conformable to mine, his 
friendship is very precious to me, and his society necessary in a 
certain manner. It seems to me, that whilst I have a faithful and 
devoted friend at my side, I cannot despair even in death ; I made 
him swear, this evening, to be with me at my last hour, and that 
he will have the courage not to prevent its arrival. 

In the voice, the look, in all the being of those we love, there is 
a magnetic fluid, a kind of halo, not visible to the eye, but sensible 
to the soul, if I may use the expression, which acts most powerfully 
upon our inmost sensation. 

Rollinat's presence inspires me silently with his melancholy re- 
signation and mournful mute serenity. Perhaps his silence has 
more effect upon me than his words. When he sits at one o'clock 
at night, in the depths of the great saloon, by the feeble light of 
one taper, forgotten rather than lighted, I throw from time to time 
a glance upon his grave and dreaming countenance, on his deep set 
eyes, Ins firmly closed mouth, and his brow wrinkled by perpetual 
thought, and it seems to me that I am contemplating lowly courage 
and mournful patience incarnate in a human form. 

Oh! friendship so sparing in demonstration, so rich in devotion J 
who can repay thee for the dark hours and fatal thoughts thou 
hast to bear with from a dying *oul ? 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 115 

Sitting like a physician at the couch of an expiring- friend, it 
seems as though he felt the pulse of my despair, and counted 
how many unhappy days I have yet to suffer. In his con- 
science, desirous of hearing my last hour sound, yet agonized in 
his affection by being forced to abandon the corpse, which he 
is yet surrounding with generous and useless solicitudes, he 
sees my misery, he neither weeps nor prays ; he makes his arm 
my last pillow, and tells me nothing of what will pass within 
him when my eyes are closed. Oh, just God, give him a friend 
who will live with him, instead of abandoning him by death ! 

I am often ashamed of this cowardice, which prevents my putting 
an end to my life at once — can I then decide upon nothing ? can I 
neither live nor die ? There are moments when I fancy that I am 
exhausted either by labour, grief, or love, and that I am no longer 
fit for anything in life ; but on the least opportunity, I find that it 
is not so, and that I am about to die in all the strength of my or- 
ganization, and all the energy of my soul. Oh ! no, it is not 
strength which is wanting to me to live and to hope ; it is faith 
and will. When any exterior event awakes me from my lethargy, 
which chance presses upon me, and makes me act according to my 
nature, I act with more presence of mind and calmness than I have 
ever done before. Such am I still, in spite of the insults and 
wounds with which they have covered me, notwithstanding the 
stones they have cast upon me, in the vain hope of exhausting the 
living and abounding fountain of virtue which God had given to 
me. They have troubled it, alas, and the beauty of the heavens is 
no longer reflected in it as heretofore. But when a beino- in sor- 
row approaches, it can yet flow for him, and he may drink deeply 
without being repulsed from its beneficent waves. There is yet 
more, this good deed, which I do without enthusiasm, even with- 
out pleasure, these duties from the discharge of which I feel no 
puerile satisfaction, perhaps this is a sacrifice more austere, per- 
haps greater before God, than the ardent offering of a younger and 
happier heart. Now I feel deeply how just my soul is, since un- 
known to me the love of good springs up again among the most 
sombre ruins. Oh! my God, could there but fall upon me from 
your paternal care a conviction ! a will, even a desire ! but in vain 



116 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

do I question this empty and desolate soul. Virtue there, is no 
longer anything but a habit, strong as necessity, but fruitless for 
my happiness ; faith is nothing but a distant glimmer, beautiful still 
in its mournful pallor, but silent, indifferent, as to my life or death ; 
a voice, losing itself in the vaults of heaven^ net giving me belief, 
only telling me to hope. My will is nothing but the dumb and 
humble minister to this remnant of virtue and religion. Its activity 
is proportioned to the need for its exercise, and perhaps it has yet 
a stronger counseller than either religion or virtue ; pride. 

Yes, a lacerated pride, standing erect and haughty under the 
wounds, and infamy with which they have endeavoured to cover it. 
None has been more outraged, more calumniated than myself, and 
none has clung with greater grief and faith to the hope of divine 
justice, and to the feelings of one's own innocence. How can one 
exist without pride when one has such an iniquitous war to sustain ? 
Why has God made me so unhappy ? and why has he permitted 
that the baseness of cowardly men may blight and destroy the exist- 
ence of the pure and good ? Must then the innocent man rise in his 
grief, and whilst drying the tears of his anger and his shame cast off 
the impurities with which they have overwhelmed him. Oh God ! 
of what art thou thinking when thou bestowest a guardianj angel 
on the child, hanging at its mother's breast, and the least herb of 
the meadow is cared for by thy providence, whilst thou leavest the 
feeble to oppression and outrage ; and honour, the brightest flower 
growing on our pathway, is broken and trodden under foot by the 
first passing schoolboy ? Is then the man whose brow is worn by 
reflection and suffering less precious in your sight than the inert 
and unformed soul of the nursling of woman ? Is our sorrowful 
human glorv more despicable in thy sight than the nettle which 
blooms in the cemetery ? Oh ! God of Heaven, look down, listen, 
and do justice ! 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 117 

■ TO ROLLINAT. 

Wednesday Evening. 

How are you, my friend ? You were ill and sad when you left 
us. Reassure us art any rate as to your health. Your soul is na- 
turally disposed to sadness, and you were unhappy even before you 
knew me ; but still I feel remorse, for, I must have cruelly increased 
this inclination to the perpetual grief and ennui which devour you. 
My gloomy and incurable sorrow must have been reflected upon yon* 
and the mournful resolutions of which I have discoursed with you 
these last few days, must have saddened and wounded your friend- 
ship for me, so loyal and so pure. Forgive me, my poor friend, I 
sought to support myself by you, to lean a moment on your arm, 
I wished to tell you my anguish, in order to confirm myself in the 
calm of despair, to carry it towards the tomb, softened and wept 
over by the tears of friendship. You have had the courage to 
listen to me in silence, and not to offer vain consolation ; you have 
assured me of your affection, the only subject I can think on 
without bitterness and doubt. Oh, I thank you much ! I have 
obtained from you the sad and holy promise to come and stand 
beside me in my hour of deliverance. Malgache would not have 
the strength to do so ; it needs an older and more resigned heart 
than his to say to me, " Leave us," and not, " Return to us." I 
cannot return to any one. 

Do not be touched or shaken by the despairing state in which 
you see me ; let not compassion reach the point of suffering ; let 
not melancholy destroy the oaken branches and lovely flowers 
which yet he in your way. How ! you are useful, you are neces- 
sary to others, you are virtuous, and yet you support life with re- 
gret ! Oh ! let not the burthen fall which you bear so nobly, and 
which, at first sight, opens to you all noble souls. You will find 
other friendship, greater, less sterile, less fatal than mine ; you 
will have a glorious old age in the bosom of an humble and pain- 
ful destiny. h, my friend, let them give me a task like yours to 

H 



118 ' LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

fulfil, let them place the plough with which you open so broad a 
furrow in society in my hands, and I will arise from my despair 5 
I will employ the strength which is within me, and which society 
now repulses as a source of error and of crime. 

But you know me. You know, if in this lacerated heart, vile 
passions, cowardice, the most trifling perfidy, the least inclination 
to any vice, hath ever found a place. You know, that if anything 
elevates me a little beyond the mediocre beings with which the 
world is encumbered, it is not the vain 6clat of a name, nor the 
frivolous talent of scribbling a few pages. You know it is the 
energetic passion for truth, the savage instinct and love of justice. 
You know that I am devoured by pride ; but that this pride has in 
it nothing petty or culpable ; that it has never betrayed me into 
any disgraceful fault, and that it might have carried me on to some 
heroic destiny, had I not been born in chains ! But then, my 
friend, what can I do with this development ? "What may this 
strength of soul produce, which has always led me to repulse the 
yoke of opinion and of human laws, not in what they may have of 
good and needful, but of what they contain odious and brutalizing. 
What use can I make of it ? Who will listen to me, who will 
believe me ? Who will live by my thoughts ? Who, at my word, 
will rise to go forward on the way, so just, so noble, in which I 
would wish to see the world progress ? No one. Oh ! if I could 
even only educate my children in these ideas ; if I could flatter 
myself that these beings, blood of my blood, would not be mere 
animals, walking under a yoke, mere automatons, obedient to every 
bond of prejudice or convention, but intelligent creatures, generous, 
unconquerable in their pride, devoted unto martyrdom in their 
affections, if I could but make of them a man, a woman, after God's 
own heart ! But that cannot be. My children condemned to 
walk in the slough of the beaten track, surrounded by adverse in- 
fluences, w r arned at every step by those opposed to me, to beware 
of me and of what they call my dreams, spectators themselves of 
my sufferings in the midst of this eternal struggle, of my wounded 
heart, of my knees worn by conflict with all the obstacles of actual 
life ; my poor children, my flesh and my soul, may turn round and 
say to me : " You mislead us, you wish us to be lost with you ! 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 119 

Are not you unfortunate, repulsed, calumniated ? What have you 
gained from these unequal struggles, these boastful duels with 
custom and belief ? Let us do as others do ; let us reap the ad- 
vantages of this easy and tolerant world ; let us commit the thou- 
sand little meannesses which purchase repose and peace amongst 
men. Speak no more to us of austere and unknown virtues, 
which others call folly, and which only lead to isolation and 
suicide." 

Behold what they will say to me, or if, from affection, or their 
latural disposition, they listen to and believe me, where shall I lead 
hem ? Into what abyss should we all three precipitate ourselves ; 
for we should be but three ; no soul with us I What can I say to 
them, if they say to me, Yes, life is insupportable in a world like 
this, let us die together ! Show us the road to Bernica, or the 
lake of Stenio, or the glaciers of Jacques ! 

It is not from pride, that I wish to prove that I am alone in this 
world, from excess of grandeur or reason. No, I am a being full 
of weakness and error, and the most brilliant lightnings of my 
soul are shrouded by the thick veil of ignorance. I am alone from 
the very strength of disenchantment and lost illusion. These illu- 
sions were palpable, but who has not had them ? They have been 
destroyed, but who has not likewise seen his own fall into dust ? 
But I had formed one, peculiar to myself, vast and beautiful as my 
soul, in the first years of life, in the bloom of adolescence. This 
illusion for me was a seal of eternal fatality, the death-warrant ; 
but this needs long developments, and a sort of account of my youth. 
Some day I will give it to you. When slumber approaches, think 
of me ; think of that midnight hour when the stars were so pure, 
the atmosphere so mild and humid, the alleys of the garden so ob- 
scure : think of that sandy walk, bordered with thyme and shrubs, 
which we have paced a hundred times in half an hour, and 
in which we have exchanged such mournful confidence, such 
sacred promises ! At that hour, sleep calmly — after sending me 
a blessing and an adieu, — I shall write to you during the time, and 
thus I shall not have lost those midnight conversations, of which 
you now deprive me, poor weary heart ; but which you will yet 
^ive me for some davs, before I depart for ever ! 

h 2 



120 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 



Saturday. 

Yes, in those days I had a strange illusion, youthful as my youth, 
manly as my thoughts and habits. It would take long to tell all 
the future embraced in its grasp, but it may be summed up in these 
few words : "in order to obtain justice in this world, one need only 
be a just man oneself." 

This was not so much a system as a conviction, I knew well 
that there were pure and honest souls whom men did not appre- 
ciate, and God seemed to abandon. Even in the circumscribed 
horizon I then dwelt in, I knew several, bat in this word, " A just 
soul," all my moral world was then comprised, and in my brain, 
then a complete mixture of the Bible, history, poetry, and philoso- 
phy, I had drawn the portrait according to my own dreams. 
Amongst the scribblings, of which at sixteen I had a heap under 
my pillow, I have found this portrait of the Just. Here is the 
pebble in its rough state. 

" The just soul has no moral sex, but is man or woman accord- 
ing to the will of God ; the code is always the same, whether the 
just soul be the general of an army or the mother of a family. 

" The just soul has no peculiar rank. He is a mendicant, a travel- 
ler, or a prince, according to the will of God. His aim, his profes- 
sion is to be just. 

" The just soul is strong, calm, and chaste. He is valiant, 
active, and thoughtful. He watches over his first impulses until 
all his first impulses are good. He despises life, and if his plact 
in this world is necessary to a' better soul than his, he yields i 
with good will, and offers it to God, saying : ' Lord, if I am 
hurtful to my brother, take my life. I will mount this courser, 
leap these bushes, cross this marsh, I will free myself from the 
danger or I will remain there, according to your will, oh my God/ 
The just soul is always willing to appear before God. 

" The just soul has no fortune, no dwelling, no slaves. His 
servants are his friends, if they are worthy of his friendship. His 
roof belongs to the wayfarer, and his purse and his vestment to 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 121 

the needy, his time and his intellect to all those who may claim 
them. 

"The just soul hates the wicked, and despises cowards. He 
gives them bread if they need it, and advice if they wish for it. 
If thev reform themselves, he pardons and encourages them, if 
thev harden themselves in evil, he forgets, but does not fear them ; 
if an assassin attacks him, he kills him, looking upon himself as 
the instrument of the justice of God. 

" The just soul never feels ennui. He works whilst he mav, 
whether with the body or the spirit, according to his wants and 
the wants of others. When he is weary, he rests, and thinks of 
God, when he is ill, he is resigned, and thinks of heaven. 

" The just soul opens his soul to friendship. He loves his 
friend next to God, and he never dreads loving his friend too 
much, for he can only love one worthy of himself. 

" The just soul is proud, but not vain. He knows not whether 
he be young, beautiful, rich, admired, he knows that he is just ; 
and he pardons those who misunderstand him, yet he leaves their 
company. He knows that those who do not comprehend, do not 
resemble him, and that if he could love them, he would cease to 
be just. 

" The just soul is sincere through every thing, and it is this 
which requires from him a sublime strength, because in the world 
there is nothing but lying, wickedness and vanity, treason and 
prejudice. 

" The just soul despises the opinion of the crowd ; he is the de- 
fender of the feeble and the oppressed, and only raises his voice 
among men to defend those whom mankind accuse unjustly. He 
delegates to none the charge of judging for him of the accused 
one* He believes only in the evil when he knows it, and without 
disquieting himself as to the anathema or ridicule, he goes to listen 
to the complaints of Job, even amidst his ashes and humiliation. 

" The just soul sins seven times a day, but they are the sins of 
a just man. There are sins which he never commits, and of which 
he does not even dream. 

" The just soul is often abused and calumniated, but he always 
obtains justice, because he loves it, because he wills it, because he 



122 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

is strong, and knows how to enforce it. He has enemies, and 
many indifferent to him, sometimes the whole crowd is against 
him ; but he has for friends some just souls like himself, who seek 
for and meet each other in this life, and to whom God has given 
his kingdom in the next world.*' 

This singular declaration of my " Rights of Man," as I then 
called it, student as I was, this innocent mixture of heresy, of 
religious puerility, encloses, nevertheless, does it not, a definite 
order of ideas, a plan of life, a choice of resolutions, a tendency 
towards a character conscientiously chosen and embraced ? It 
may explain to you, nearly, what were the illusions of my youth ; 
and in the midst of sentiments inspired by the gospel, a sort of 
rebellious restriction dictated by rising pride, by innate obstinacy ; 
a vague dream of human grandeur, mingled with the more serious 
ambition of a Christian. 

Presumptuous or foolish as it may be, this hope of arriving at 
the state of a just soul, that is to say, of practising mercy, frank- 
ness, and austerity with calm and joy ; of supporting blame and 
contradiction with firmness and indifference, this desire to have a 
name honoured amongst the elect souls met with in this life, this 
ambition of a glory, humble yet desirable, of a labour so difficult, 
so long, of a contest against societv crowned at the end with suc- 
cess, or at least by the esteem of the small number of good men 
whom I hoped to rejoin upon the unknown seas of the future, was 
the dream, the illusion of my happiest years, faith in justice, both 
human and divine v What has become of it ? a frightful regret, 
the source of a disgust and ennui for which there is no remedy 
but death. 

This was the source of my defects and my good qualities, or it 
was my good qualities and defects which inspired me with these 
false ideas. I have owed to them many useless virtues, many 
traits of heroic folly, many acts of imbecile grandeur and sublime 
devotion, of which the object and result have been ignobly ridicu- 
lous. I wished to play the part of a strong man, and I have been 
overcome like an infant. Shall I repent myself of it to day, when 
I am going to appear before thee, oh God ? No, for if divine 
justice is a dream like human justice, at least, there is the repose of 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. ji3 

annihilation, which must be desirable after the fatigues of an exist- 
ence such as mine. 

I have indeed met them, these just souls, I have grasped their 
hands ; and their esteem, yours beyond all, my friend, has spread 
over my wounds a consoling balm. I have practised this justice, 
not alway so strictly as I had prescribed it to myself in those days 
of youthful fanaticism ; but if ennui or my passions, if grief or 
love have sometimes turned aside this arm which flattered itself, it 
was always extended towards the feeble and unfortunate ; if this 
harsh severity towards the wicked has often been deceived by a 
judgment too easily betrayed, by a heart easily seduced ; never- 
theless I have committed no action, caressed no vice, admitted no 
principle which has made me leave the path of justice ; I have 
pursued it slowly, I have arrested my steps more than once, I have 
lost much trouble and much time in the pursuit of phantoms. But 
instinct, the necessity of obeying my nature, have always kept my 
feet upon the ivory pathway, and if I am not yet the just soul I 
would willingly be, there is nothing in the past to prevent my 
becoming so ; but it is in the present there lies the obstacle, even 
as an upturned mountain, and this obstacle is despair. 

And why has this livid spectre extended its heavy and icy influ- 
ence over me ? Why has bitterness entered so deeply into my 
heart, that all good, all the consolations admitted even by my 
reason, are rejected by my instinct ? How is it that I exclaimed 
to you in the garden the other evening, my soul penetrated by a 
gloomy superstition, " There' is in nature a voice which cries to 
me every where, from the grassy herbage, from the lofty foliage, 
from echo, from the horizon, from heaven and earth, from the 
stars, from the flowers, from the sunshine, as from the darkness, 
from the moon as from the dawn, and even from the glances of my 
friends — ' Leave us, thou hast nothing more to do here.' " 

This is caused perhaps by my possessing ambition of the intel- 
lect and sensibility of heart ; it is because I have drawn the cha- 
racter of a just soul in proportions too antique, and have not been 
able to prevent my brain being annoyed by the puerile miseries of 
the present day. I have said, I will do this, and I will be calm -> 
I have done it, and have been agitated. — I had said again, I will 



124 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

brave these dangers, and will not shudder ; I braved them, and 
came from the conflict pale with fear. I said at last, I will 
obtain such things, and they will content me ; I have obtained 
them, and am not content. I have fulfilled my duty tolerably 
well ; but I have found sorrow more bitter, and happiness less 
happy than I had dreamed them to be. Why does truth, instead 
of showing herself as she really is, grand, gaunt, naked and terri- 
ble, show herself laughing, beautiful and flowery, to children in 
their dreams ? 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 125 



TO MALGACHE. 

1 have been reading immensely for some days ; I say immensely, 
because for more than three years I have not read as much as an 
octavo volume, and now in a fortnight these are the three works I 
am swallowing and digesting : The Eucharist, by the Abbe 
Gerbet, Reflections on Suicide, by Madame de Stael ; and the life 
of Victor Alfleri, by Victor Alfieri. The first I read by chance ; 
the second from curiosity, to see how this man-woman compre- 
hended life ; and the third from sympathy, some one having repre- 
sented it as a book which would appeal energetically to my mind. 
A sermon — a dissertation — a history — the history of Alfieri 
resembles a romance ; it interests, warms, and excites one's feelings 
— the Catholicism of the Abbe has the narrow solemnity, the 
inevitable inutility of an ascetic book. There is only the disserta- 
tion, then, of Madame de Stael, which is what it wishes to be, a 
production, correct, logical, common as to the thoughts, beautiful 
as to the style, and learned in its arrangement. I have found no 
other solace in it, than the pleasure of learning that Madame de 
Stael loved life, that she had a thousand reasons for valuing it, 
that her destiny was infinitely more happy, her head stronger and 
more intelligent, than mine. As for the rest, I think her book has 
increased the attractions of suicide for me. When I find a village 
pedagogue on my route, I feel ennui, but I have patience with him, 
he exercises his trade. But if I meet an illustrious professor, and 
hoping to find some help from him, I consult him in order to 
clear up my doubts and calm my anxieties, I should be even more 
shocked, more sad than before, if he says to me in fine phrases 
and perfectly chosen words the same commonplaces which the 
village pedagogue had just been bestowing on me in kitchen latin ; 
he had the merit at least of sometimes making me smile at his 
barbarisms, and his emphases might be absurd ; but the doctoral 
coldness of the other is merely pitiable. It is like an oak to 
which you run for safety, and which breaks like a reed, letting you 
fall yet deeper into the abyss. 



126 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

The " Eucharist" is certainly a book worthy of being distin- 
guished in spite of its defects. I am very glad to have read it ; 
not that it has done me any good, it is too Catholic for me, and 
special books can do good but to a very small number ; but because 
it took me back to the days of my first youth, so devout, tender 
and credulous. 

Alfieri pleases me as a man. What I like in him, is his pride ; 
what interests me in him, are his terrible combats between his 
pride and his weakness ; what I admire in him, is his energy, his 
patience, and his unheard-of efforts to make himself a poet. Alas, 
here is another who has suffered, who has detested life, who has 
sobbed and roared, (to use his own expression) in the fury of 
suicide, and he like the others has consoled himself with a rattle. 
He has experienced love, and its hideous disenchantments, its regrets 
mingled with shame and contempt, and the ennui of solitude and 
cold disdain, and the sad clear-sightedness of all things except of 
the last bauble which saved him, glory ! 

The life of Alfieri, considered as a book, is one of the most excel- 
lent I know. It is true I do not know many, especially since the 
time when memory of many things left me, but this one is written 
with extreme simplicity, and with a coolness of judgment, from 
whence results a great warmth of emotion to the reader, and with 
a conciseness and rapidity full of order and moderation. I think 
that all those who intend to write their lives, should propose this 
biography for their model, in form, dimensions, and manner. This 
is what I promised myself to do in reading it, and what I am 
equally sure not to fulfil. 

To resume, I must tell you that reading does me infinitely more 
harm than good. I will wean myself from it as quickly as possi- 
ble. It increases my uncertainty as to all truth, and my dis- 
couragement as to all futurity. All those who write the history of 
human sufferings, preach from the height of their calm or their 
forgetfulness. Peacefully seated on .the hobby which has carried 
them out of danger, they talk to me of the system of the belief 
or the vanity which consoles them. This one is a devotee, that 
one a savant, the great Alfieri makes tragedies. Across their pre- 
sent wellbeing, they see their past griefs only as grains of sand, 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 127 

and treat mine as the same, forgetting that mine at present are 
mountains, as their own were. They have climbed them, and I, like 
Prometheus, remain beneath, having only my heart free, wherewith 
to nourish a vulture. They smile calmly, the cruel ones ! The 
one utters over my agony the word of religious contempt. Vani- 
tas ! The next calls my anguish, weakness ; and the third ignorance. 
'* Before I was devout/' says one, ee I also was beneath this rock ; he 
devout and rise up!" "You expire?" says Madame de Stael, 
" remember the great men of antiquity, and make some fine phrase 
thereupon. Nothing solaces one so much as rhetoric." " You suffer 
from ennui ?" cries Alfieri, " Oh ! how I also suffered from it ! But 
' Cleopatra' got me clear off!'* Well, well I know it, you are all 
virtuous, happy and glorious. Each cries to me, " Pise ; rise, do as 
I do, write, sing, love, pray." Even so with you, my good Mal- 
gache, who advise me to build an ajoupa and to study the classifi- 
cations of Linnaeus. My masters and my friends, have you nothing 
better than this to say to me ? Can none of you carry his hand 
to this rock and take it from my oppressed and bleeding bosom ? 
At least, if I am to die without succour, chant to me the tears of 
Jeremiah or the Lamentations of Job. They were not pedants, 
they said openly, " Rottenness is in my bones, and the worms of 
the sepulchre have entered my flesh/ ; 



128 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 



TO ROLLINAT. 

I am very sorry I have written that bad book called Leila ; not 
because I repent of it ; that book was the most hardy and loyal 
action of my life, also one of the most foolish and likely to dis- 
gust me with the world on account of its results. But there are 
many things at which one is enraged and yet which one ridicules 
at the same time, many wasps which sting without exciting anger ; 
many contrarieties which make life a bore, but which do not 
amount to the despair which kills. The pleasure of having done 
these things soon effaces the pain of the attempt. If I regret 
having written Lelia, it is because I no longer have, the power of 
writing such a book. And yet I am in a state of mind so similar to 
that in which I wrote Lelia, that it woul d be the greatest solace to 
me now if I could recommence it. Unhappily, one cannot write 
two books upon the same idea, without introducing many modifica- 
tions. The state of my mind when I wrote Jacques (which is not 
yet published) allowed me to correct the character or idea of 
Lelia, to produce it differently and to facilitate its digestion to the 
good public. At present, I am past Jacques, and instead of ar- 
riving at the next step in my soul's progress, I fall back to the 
last. What ! will my time of settled mind never come ? Oh ! if 
it does come, my friend you shall see what profound philosophers, 
what antique stoics, what white -bearded hermits, shall promenade 
through my romances ! what heavy deliberations, what magnifi- 
cent pleadings, what proud condemnations, what pious sermons 
shall flow from my pen! how I will ask your forgiveness for 
having been young and unhappy ; how I will parade before you 
the wisdom of old age, and the calm joy of egotism ! Let no 
one dream of being unhappy in those times ; for I will set myself 
to work, and I will blacken three reams of paper in proving that 
he is a fool and a coward, and that as for me, I am quite happy. 
I will be as false, as bombastic, as useless as Trenmor, a type 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 129 

which I have ridiculed more than any one else, and before any 
one else, but no one understood this. They did not see that, 
clothing divers passions, or divers opinions under human forms, 
and being forced by logic to make human reason appear also, I 
had been to seek for it in the galleys, and having erected it like 
a gallows in the midst of the other chatterers, at last, I sent it 
in the form of a great white stick, wandering towards the fields 
of futurity, lured onwards by a will-o'the-wisp for a hobby horse. 
I understand you to ask me if it is a comedy, this book which 
you have read so seriously, you, who are a veritable Trenmor in 
strength and virtue, who know how to think all that mine says, 
and know how to do all that mine merely indicates, I should 
answer you, yes, or no, according to the temper of the moment. 
There were nights of reflection, austere sorrow, enthusiastic re- 
signation, when I wrote fine phrases all in good faith. There 
were morning hours of fatigue, sleeplessness and anger, when I 
jested at the evening, and thought every blasphemy I wrote. 
There were afternoons of ironical and facetious humour, when, in 
order to escape, as I do to day, from the pedantry of consolation 
givers, I amused myself by making Trenmor a philosopher more 
empty than a gourd, and more impossible even than happiness. 
This book, so evil, yet so good, so true and so false, so serious, 
yet so full of working, is certainly ^the most profoundly, the most 
sadly, the most bitterly felt, that a brain in delirium has ever pro- 
duced. This is the reason it is deformed, mysterious and incapa- 
ble of success. Those who took it for a romance had good 
reason to think it detestable. Those who took for a reality all 
that the allegory concealed so sadly chaste, had good reason to 
be scandalized. Those who hoped to find a treatise on morals or 
philosophy make its appearance out of these caprices, have justly 
found the conclusion absurd and disappointing. Those alone, 
who suffering from the same anguish, have listened to its broken 
plaints, feverish sobs, mournful laughter and excitation, have com- 
prehended its import well, and by them it is loved without being 
approved. They think of it precisely as I do myself, that it is a 
frightful crocodile very well dissected; a naked bleeding heart, 
an object of horror and of pity. Where is the time, when one 



130 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

would not have dared to print a book without furnishing it, not 
only with the king's permission, but with a good moral, thickly 
spread, quite proper and very useless. People with head and heart 
never fail in proving exactly the contrary of that which they wish 
to proye. L'Abbe Prevost, whilst demonstrating by the mouth 
of Tiberge, that it is a great misfortune and a great debasement 
to love a prostitute, proves by the example of Desgrieux that love 
ennobles every thing, and that nothing is repulsive that is deeply 
felt by a generous heart. To complete the blunder, Tiberge is 
useless, Manon is adorable, and the book is a sublime monument 
of love and truth. 

Jean Jacques may do his best ; Julie only becomes dear again 
to the reader when at her last hour she writes to St. Preux, that 
she has never ceased to love him. It is the logical, the reasoning, 
the utilitarian Madame de Stael who makes this remark. She also 
remarks that the letter in defence of suicide is far superior to the 
letter condemning it. Alas ! why write against one's conscience. 
Jean Jacques, if it is true, as many think, that you hastened your 
own death, why conceal it from us ? Why such sublime un- 
reasoning to conceal an overpowering despair ? Unhappy martyr, 
who pined to be classical like the others, why not cry aloud ? that 
would have consoled you, we would have drunk every drop of 
your blood with yet more fervour, we would pray to you as to our 
Christ weeping sacred tears. 

Is it beautiful or puerile, this affectation of philanthropic utility ? 
Is it the liberty of the press or the example of Goethe followed 
by Byron, or the reason of the age which has delivered us from 
it ? Is it a crime to own all one's chagrin, all one's ennui ? Is 
it a virtue to conceal it ! Perhaps ! to be silent, yes ; but to lie, 
to have the courage to write volumes, to disguise both from others 
and oneself the depths of one's soul ! 

Yes ! yes ! it was right ! These men laboured to cure them- 
selves, and to make their cure serviceable to others. Trying to 
persuade others, they persuaded themselves. Their pride wounded 
by mankind, raised itself again by the declaration that it had 
cured itself by its own efforts from their attacks. Ingenuous 
saviours of your ingenuous contemporaries, you did not see the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 131 

evil you had sown under the sacred flowers of your eloquence. 
You did not dream of a generation like the present, which 
nothing can deceive, which dissects and examines all emotions, 
and which, even beneath the halo of your Christian glory, can 
perceive your pale brows, furrowed by the storm ! You did not 
foresee that your precepts would go out of fashion, and your 
griefs alone remain to us and to our posterity ! 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER, 



TO FRANCOIS ROLLINAT. 

January, 1835. 

Why the devil did not you come yesterday ? We waited dinner 
for } T ou till seven o'clock, — a wonderful deed for appetites excited 
by the fresh air ©f the country. Were you delayed by a 
gossipping client ? You were not ill, at any rate ? Now we do not 
expect you till Saturday. But let me hear from you during the 
interval, do you hear Pylades ? we shall he uneasy. Your ap- 
pearance for the last three months has not been calculated to re- 
assure us. Poor, little, yellow, old man, what is wrong with you ? 
I know your usual reply to this question is, "What is wrong with 
yourself ? are you a young, rich, robust, and healthy man, that 
you should disquiet yourself so much about my looks?" Alas* 
we are both of us of a poor outside, and our parchment looking 
bodies contain souls both withered and weary, Comrade mine ! 

Bah ! of what am I talking ? yesterday we were gayer than 
ever ; nevertheless we wanted you very much, but we drank your 
health, and became rather elevated, whilst making vows for your 
good faith. Pylades, we must not deny the good which Providence 
still leaves us in reserve. At the very moment when we give up 
all as lost, the kind goddess is there behind us, covering with tin- 
sel some pretty little bauble, which she puts into our hands 
so gently that we do not even suspect her de , n ; for, if we did 
but imagine that she was mocking us and not thinking of 
our fury in a serious light, we should be capable of killing our- 
selves to force her to believe us. But we hope she is a little inti- 
midated by our threats, and that she will behave better to us for 
the future ; we look at the rattle she has put into our hands, and 
we shake its bells, declaring all the time, "Bells cf folly, you may 
ring as much as you please, but we shall take no pleasure in you.*' 
But we go on ringing them, and listen to them with such com- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. If 3 

plaisance that soon we turn into rattles ourselves ; and songs of 
joy and laughter issue from our void and desolate hearts. Then 
we find admirable reasons to reconcile ourselves with life, reason- 
ings quite as fine as those which made us so ready to renounce life 
in the preceding week. What a foolish jest is the human heart ! 
What after all, is this heart, of which we talk so much ? How is 
it that it is so odd, so impressible, so cowardly in suffering, so 
volatile in pleasure ? Are there good and bad angels which 
breathe their influence alternately over this poor organ of our 
life ? Can the diaphragm which opens responsive to a cup of 
coffee and a bon mot be a soul, a ray from the Divinity. But if 
it is but a sponge fit only to contain the vivifying blood, whence 
then come those sudden aspirations, the trembling fears, the 
anguish the agonizing cries which escape when certain syllables 
strike upon the ear, or when the light, playing on a wall, designs 
from the fringe of a curtain, or the angle of a carving, certain 
fantastic lines, profiles sketched by chance, and imbued with 
magical remembrances. Why, in the midst of our suppers, where, 
God be thanked, there is no lack of noise and gaiety, are there 
some amongst us to whom tears come without their knowing 
why ? " He is drunk'' — some say. But why does wine make this 
one weep, that one laugh ? Oh gaiety of man, how near art 
thou to tears ! And what then is this power* which a sound, an 
object, a vague thought has over us all ? When we are all wild 
together screaming, shouting, in all the false intonations, in all the 
incoherent keys of intoxication, if one amongst us makes a solemn 
sign and says Listen ! all are quiet and listen. Then in the silence 
of these vast saloons, a distant and plaintive voice raises itself. 
It comes from the depths of the valley, it mounts in harmonious 
circles, amidst the fir trees in the garden, then it reaches the 
corner of the house ; glides by a window, steals along the cor- 
ridors, and at length bursts against the doors of our saloon with 
powerful sobbing. All our countenances lengthen, our lips grow 
pale, we are fixed to our place, in the same attitude as when the 
sound first reached us. Then one cries out, " Bah, 'tis only the 
wind, I care not." In fact, it is the wind, and nothing but the 
wind, and people do care for it, and no one without an effort can 



134 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

surmount the sadness which these things inspire. But why sad- 
ness ? Do the fox and the partridge feel melancholy when the 
wind sighs along the heath ? Does the doe mourn when the 
moon rises ? What, then, is this being who erects himself into 
lord of the creation, and whose reveries ; are nought but tears 
and alarm ? 

But why should we be melancholy, unless we have lost our 
senses ? Our wives are charming, and our friends, can there be 
better ) Are there many mortals so happy as to have united 
under one roof, nearly every day for a month fourteen or fifteen 
noble and true souls, linked together by a sacred friendship. Oh 
mv friends, beloved friends, do you know your value in a life of 
unhappiness ? you are not sufficiently aware of it, you are not 
sufficiently aware of the good you do ; it is indeed good to save 
a soul from despair. 

Alas, alas ! what is this mingling of bitterness and joy ? what 
is this sentiment of repulsion and love, which brings me back 
each year in the season which is not autumn, but which is not yet 
winter, a month of melancholy reverie and tender misanthropy ; 
for all this may be found in this poor weary head over which the 
paternal roof sheds so great a solemnity. 

Oh ! my household gods ! I find you the same as I left you. 
I bend before you with the respect which each year of advancing 
age renders deeper in the heart of man. Idols hidden by dust, 
which saw the infancy of my father, my own and my children's 
cradle pass at your feet, you who gazed on the bier of one gene- 
ration, and who will see that of the next. I hail you, oh ye 
protecting powers ! before whom my trembling childhood bowed 
itself ; godlike friends whom I have tearfully invoked from distant 
lands, from the depths of stormy passions. My sensations, when 
I again see you, are at once both sweet and bitter. Why did I 
quit you, who are always favourable to simple hearts, you who 
watch over infancy while the mother sleeps, you who send chaste 
dreams of love to hover over the couch of youthful maidens, you 
who give health and sleep to the aged. Do you recognize, oh 
peaceful Penates, the pilgrim who comes covered with the way- 
side du^t and in the evening twilight, do you not mistake him for 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 135 

a stranger ? His faded cheeks, his furrowed brow, his eyes worn 
by weeping, like ravines hollowed by a torrent, his infirmities, 
his sadness, and his scars ; does not all this prevent your remem- 
bering the valiant spirit which went from hence one morning 
embodied in a robust frame, and mounted on a heath-fed palfrey, 
a steady and untiring courser, as though rider and animal intended 
to make the tour of the world ? Behold the rider, the children 
call him Toby, and they support him in order that he may be 
able to walk. The old horse there, eating the nettles growing 
in the cemetery, is Colette, once worthy of bearing Bradamante, 
but now become blind, she can yet through the insight of instinct 
and memory, regain the litter on which she w T ill perish to-morrow. 

Ah ! Colette, your best days are over, but it is a good action 
to have kept a corner and truss of straw for you in the stable. 
What has secured for you the fortunate destiny of not being sold 
-to the carrier, like all other old horses ? the most sacred of all 
claims, old age. That which has been has always something re- 
spectable about it. That which is is always open to doubt and 
dispute. From w T hence then arises the friendship which they feel for 
your old master here ? No one here knows him, he has been away 
long, he has travelled far ; his features are changed, of his tastes, 
habits, character, one now remembers nothing, for many things 
have passed in his existence since he was still proud and strong ! 
But one word, both simple and sweet attaches those to him who 
otherwise might distrust him, and this word is " auld lang syne."* 

" He was here then/' say they, " he did such and such things 
with us, he was one of us, we knew him ; this way he went to the 
chase, in that field he gathered mushrooms, do you remember 
such a one's wedding and such a one's burial ? ,; . . . . When one 
gets into the chapter of "do you remember" what precious bonds of 
gold and diamond link hearts together, what warm flushes of 
youth mount to the face, and revivify forgotten joys, and neglected 
affections ! One imagines, then, that affection was greater than it 
really was ; and in fact, past pleasures, like projected ones, seem 
more intense than those now present with us. 

"Ah! but it is an intense pleasure, though, to embrace one's 
friends after a long absence, crying, 'At last you are here, 
* " Ce mot ; — c'est Autrefois." 



136 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

old friend ! is it you my daughter ! is it you, my niece, or my 
sister !" 

Do not tell me then, my friend, that I am courageous, and 
that the gaiety I show is an effort made by my friendship for you 
and them. Do not believe this. I am happy in fact, happy 
through you, unhappy through others. But once here, what 
matters anything which is not you ? Do not fancy I dwell upon 
it ? I remember it in spite of myself ; but why talk of it, why 
should you know it ? Oh no, let no one know it, except the two 
or three who cannot be deceived by the expression of my brow. 
But let others know nothing of me but the happiness which comes 
from them. The poor children might doubt its existence could 
they see the depths of the* abyss which they are covering with 
flowers. They would retire in fear, saying, " Nothing can bloom 
upon this desolate soil ; for those who can know no cure have no 
friends, and when man can no longer be useful to man, he who 
may yet be saved, flies to a distance, and the one for whom there is 
no hope, dies alone. Can these youthful minds comprehend what 
passes in the hearts of those who have lived and suffered ? . Can 
they know, that in one breast may be inclosed all elements of joy and 
grief, without the power to make use of either. At their age, they 
think all grief ought either to destroy or be destroyed ; theirs is 
the age for deep desolation, grave melodies, austere resolutions, 
dark and silent despair. But after these fatal epochs have passed, 
thev have on their side, youth, which resumes its rights, the heart 
which mav be renewed and re -inspirited ; the inner life which reveals 
itself, intense and eager to repair lost time, and in all this may be 
comprised ten or twenty stormy years filled with dreadful evils and 
indescribable joys. But when experience has really made itself 
felt, when the passions, not deadened but repressed, can yet burn- 
ingly awake, to be again struck with horror by the spectres of the 
past, then it is that the Hainan heart, before, so ready to promise 
and undertake, no longer recognizes itself. It knows that which it 
has been, but knows not what it may be, for its struggles have 
been so many it can no longer reckon on its strength. And 
besides it has lost the anxiety for suffering, so natural to the young. 
The old have suffered enough. Their grief has no poetry left ; 
grief only embellishes beauty. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 137 

To be pale sometimes makes woman's beauty divine, and 
man's noble. But when grief manifests itself by irreparable 
ravages, when it furrows brows already ofd and sad, it is felt 
to be annoying and dangerous. It is bidden like a vice, and 
concealed from all sight, for fear that the dread of infection 
may make the happy keep aloof. Then, it is, that one is most 
worthy to be pitied, for one does not pity oneself, and one 
fears to excite compassion. It is at this age, that friends of 
a similar standing understand one another with a look, and that 
a word suffices to reveal all the history of a past life. 

How is it that when we meet again after a separation of 
months, you read so well upon my brow the history of the evils 
I have suffered in the interval ? How is it that you can tell me 
at once as you grasp my hand, " Well, well, such or such a 
thing has happened to you, you have acted thus ; I know what 
is passing in your heart ! Oh ! how exactly you relate to me 
all the details of my unhappiness. Poor human beings that we 
are ! the very griefs that we speak of with so much emphasis, 
and whose burthen we carry with so much pride, all know 
them, all have suffered them, it is like having the tooth-ache, 
every one says to you " I pity you, it is very hard to bear," — 
and all is said. 

Sad, oh sad ! But in friendship there is something so beautiful 
and beneficent which disquiets and occupies itself with your un- 
happiness as though it were unique in its kind. Oh ! sweet com- 
passion, maternal kindness to a weeping child who asks for pity ! 
how sweet it is to find you in the grave and experienced soul of an 
old friend ! He knows all, he is accustomed to watch over your 
wounds, and yet he is not weary of your sufferings, and his 
pity is renewed unceasingly. Friendship ! friendship ! delight 
of those hearts which love has injured and abandoned ! a gener- 
ous sister whom one neglects, but who alway pardons ! 

Oh ! my Pylades, I beg of you, do not make me into a tragic 
personage. Do not tell me that it requires a frightful strength 
to support this gaiety. No, no, it is not a part I play, it is 
not a task, it is not even a calculation, it is an instinct and a 
necessity. Human nature has no affinity for that which is in- 



138 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

jurious to it, the soul does not desire suffering, the body does 
not desire death ; in the very face of the deepest grief, and 
most serious illness both soul and body disclaim and fly from 
the dreaded approach of destruction. 

There are some crises so violent, that suicide becomes a 
mania, a necessity. Some peculiar portion of the brain is suf- 
fering and physically declining. But once let the crisis pass 
over ; and nature, robust nature intended by God to endure a 
specified time, extends her desolate arms, and catches at the 
smallest shrub to save her from falling to the depths below. 
When life was made so miserable for man, Providence knew 
well that a great horror of death must be inspired to mankind. 
And that is the grandest, the most inexplicable of the miracles 
which concur towards the duration of the human species ; for 
any one who could see clearly all that is around him, would seek 
for death. These moments of fatal clearsightedness happen to 
us sometimes, but we do not always yield, and the same miracle 
which makes flowers and plants bloom again, after the snow 
and ice, operates in the heart of man. And then, all that one 
calls reason, human wisdom, all books, all these systems of 
philosophy, all the social and religious duties which attach us to 
life, are they not there ? Have they not also been invented to 
help us to flatter our natural inclinatiors,Iike all other fundamental 
principles, property, despotism, and the rest ? These laws are 
full of wisdom and formed to stand, but better ones might be 
made, and Jesus, in suffering martyrdom, has given a great ex. 
ample of suicide. As for myself, I declare to you, that if I do 
not kill myself, it is entirely because I am a coward. 

And what makes me a coward ? It is not the fear of giving 
myself a little pain either from dagger or pistol ; it is the fearful 
feeling of existing no longer, the grief of quitting my family, 
my children and my friends ; it is the horror of the grave ; for 
though the soul may hope for another life, yet it is so intimately 
bound up with this poor body, it has contracted, whilst its 
habitant, so sweet a complacency towards it, that it shudders at 
the idea of leaving it to rot as food for worms. The soul may 
feel that neither it nor the body will then know anything of it, 
but whilst they are united, the soul cares for and esteems her 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 139 

envelope, and cannot form an idea of what separation from each 
other may be, 

I support life then, because I love it, and although the sum 
of my griefs is infinitely greater than that of my joys, although 
I have lost those pleasures, without which I thought life an 
impossibility, still I love the sad destiny which yet remains to 
me, and each time I reconcile myself to it, I discover, comforts 
of which I had taken no heed, or of which I denied the ex- 
istence when rich and proud with happiness. Oh, how insolent 
is man when his passion is triumphant ! When he loves or is 
beloved, how he despises all which is not love, how lightly he 
esteems his life, how ready he is to throw it away, when his star 
begins to pale a little ! And when he loses what he loves, what 
agony, what convulsions, what hatred of the consolations of 
friendship, for the mercies of God ! But God has made him 
fearful as well as boastful ; and soon again feeble, shamefaced, 
weeping like a child, seeking with timid steps to find his way 
again, he hastily seizes the hand held out to guide him. Ridi- 
culous, puerile and unfortunate being ! w T ho knows neither how 
to accept nor to withdraw himself from his destiny ! 

Ah ! do not let us make a jest of this miserable state, it is 
that of us all, and we all know that its degradation, and want of 
strength and grandeur renders it more unhappy and worthy of 
compassion. Whilst one has faith in one's strength, pride re- 
mains, and pride consoles for everything. One strides loftily 
along, and bends the brow with terrible and majestic calm ; it 
is decreed that one dies this evening or the next day, and such 
pride is felt at this grand resolution, (which a barber or prosti- 
tute is just as capable of executing as Cato of Utica,) and one 
is so pleased at scorning instead of submitting to the decrees of 
fate, that one is already half consoled. One's mind feels per- 
fectly free, which causes great astonishment ; the will is made, 
some letters are burnt, some left in the care of friends, solemn 
adieus are uttered ; one esteems, one admires and loves oneself. 
But here is the worst of it, one gets reconciled to oneself, and 
gains back self-esteem, and, affection returns with admirable 
goodness to place herself between the heroic self and the ex- 
piatory self. The sacrificer, that is to say, pride, little by little 



140 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

extends grace to the victim, that is to say to weakness, the first 
is softened, the other laments ; Pride ask Weakness if she was 
sincere just now, if she really intended to bare her throat to the 
knife ; the other replies, Yes. Pride condescends to believe it, and 
to decide that the will is to be taken for the deed, that the 
shame is washed away, honour satisfied, and hope reanimated. 
Then comes a friend who smiles at your intention, but who 
feigns, if in the least good and delicate, to be alarmed at it 
and to snatch from you the murderous weapon, truth to tell, no 

very difficult task Alas ! alas ! let us not laugh at all 

this. All this ends in not killing oneself, and in the end 
one gives up the idea of being strong, and pride has a fall, 
and suffering is appeased ; but, there remains for ever in the 
depths of the soul a dumb sorrow, a profound melancholy, which 
accepts all distractions, but which no distraction changes ; for 
that which one believes, one wills, and that which one knows, 
one endures. — Now, which is better, the scaffold,'or a perpetuity 
of the galleys ? 

But good night, old friend, it is late — in an hour it will be 
broad daylight, and, I must awake with the cocks sounding their 
morning trumpet, and the dogs who begin howling that the 
court-yard gates may be opened, and your brother Charles who 
sings like a lark at the rising of the sun. You will come on 
Sunday, will you not ? It will I hope, be just such weather as 
we like, no moon, the sky frosty, the stars shining and the air 
clear and sonorous ; your brother will sing his stabat, and we 
go under the great pine tree to listen to him. It does us good 
to be sorrowful together, but when one is alone, one must avoid 
it, in our present state of mind. This is the reason of my 
writing to you, in order that I may not go to bed, till over- 
powering slumber will cut short all too grave reflection. Oh 
Heaven ! Behold, then, these gay guests, these amiable old 
men, behold them at their bedside, seized with terror at the 
idea of the thoughts which await them there. This is why one 
must sleep at break of day, that is the hour when the night- 
mare leaves the bed, and has no more power over man. Adieu ! 
Give my blessing to your twelve children. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 141 



Sunday. 



Sixce you cannot come to-day, I have come to shut myself 
up with you, and chat through the medium of pen and ink 
with your ennui, for you are suffering from ennui, and nothing 
else. Do not go and imagine that you have any grief. Ennui 
is a sufficiently great evil, but it is a noble evil, and one from 
which all that is noble in the human soul may take its rise. 
It is only necessary to define one's ennui properly, and to direct 
its inspirations to some poetical end. But the devil take you, 
you are not in the least poetical. You determine every thing, 
you cannot remain in doubt about any subject. If you knew 
what ennui really is, and what may be done with it ! I will 
try to explain it to you as I understand it. 

Ennui is the languor of the soul, an intellectual atony, which 
succeeds to great emotions or great desires. It is a fatigue, an 
uneasiness, a disgust resembling that which the stomach feels 
when it experiences the necessity of eating without the wish. 
The mind seeks like the. stomach for an aliment which may re- 
animate and please its longings. Xeither work nor pleasure 
will do ; it requires happiness or suffering, and ennui is the very 
emotion preceding or following either of these. It is not a vio- 
lent state, but sad, easy to cure, easy to aggravate. But the 
moment one idealizes it, it becomes touching, and melancholy, 
and very becoming, either to the countenance or to the discourse. 
To reach this point, one must give oneself completely up to it. 
The receipt is as follows : — Clothe yourself comfortably, ac- 
cording to the season, have a pair of very good slippers, an 
excellent fire in winter, a light hammock in summer, a good 
horse in spring, and in autumn a garden walk, edged with 
ranunculuses. Besides this, you must have a book in the hand, 
a cigar in the mouth, read about a line an hour, and then think 
about it for eight or ten minutes at most, in order that you may 
not be governed by any fixed idea. The rest of the time you 
may dream, but take care to change your place, or your pipe* 
or the position of your head, or the direction of your eyes. 



142 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

Thus, by determining not to disturb your uneasiness, bye and 
bye, you will see it turn into a very comfortable disposition. 
You will at first acquire a great clearness of observation; a great 
calmness in collecting the forms either of ideas, or objects in 
those divisions of the brain which resemble the leaves of an 
album. Then will come a mild contemplation of yourself and 
others ; and that which, just before, appeared inconvenient or in- 
different to you, will soon be agreeable, picturesque, and beau- 
tiful. The least object will soon have its particular trick in 
your eyes, the least sound will seem a melody, the least visit a 
happy event. 

It often happens to me, I can assure you, to wake in a terrible 
fit of spleen. The spleen is a serious attack of ennui, sufficiently 
disagreeable. I do not exactly know what Pascal meant by 
those " penstes de derritre la t4te^* which he reserved as a reply 
to polemical objections, or for denying in secret what he 
feigned to accept openly. This was most probably, the Jesuit- 
ism of intellect, forced to bend to outward duty, but never- 
theless involuntarily rebelling against the absurd decision. To 
me, the expression seemed a terrible one. It has not only been 
met with amongst his " Pensces," but written separately on a 
piece of paper, and conceived somewhat in this way : M And I 
also, I shall have my 4 thoughts from the back of the head/ ' 
Oh ! mournful words, drawn from a desolate heart ! Alas ! 
there are days when the human heart is like a double mirror, 
where one surface sends back to the other the reverse of those 
objects it has received in front. 

It is then that every thing, and every man, and every word 
has an inevitable wrong side, and that there is not a caress, an 
enjoyment, an idea, which has not its foil or shadow acting like 
an iron spring within the brain. This is a fatal and unhealthy 
power, you may be sure. Human reason indeed consists in 
seeing things on all sides, but a happily constituted human 
nature does not willingly enter into such self-examination ; it is 
not so clear-sighted, and Pascal has said elsewhere, " the will 
which takes more pleasure in one thing than another, predeter- 
mines the mind against considering the qualities of the one it 
• " Thoughts from the back of the head." 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 143 

does not like, and the will thus becomes one of the principal 
organs of belief." And all this is dreadfully sad ; life is endu- 
rable only whilst forgetting these gloomy truths, and there are 
no possible feelings or affections where these " thoughts from 
the back of the head " do not intrude their presence. 

Therefore, whenever I feel myself in this miserable frame of 
mind, I use every effort to distract my attention, and soften its 
effects. I then mystify all my ideas in the enormous smoke 
clouds of my pipe. In summer I swing myself in my hammock 
till I am quite intoxicated ; in winter I expose my old tibias to 
the fire with such stoicism that a pretty severe burn is the con- 
sequence, and a kind of moxa which carries off the cerebral 
irritation. A beautiful verse, read while passing by, for God be 
thanked, our walls are covered by them, as a Mosque is by sen- 
tences from the Koran, a ray of sunlight piercing through the 
frost, a certain kind of dazzling taking place in my sight or my 
thoughts, and the habitual prism takes its position again, nature 
resumes her accustomed beauty, and in the large saloon our 
friends appear to me in groups, unremarked before, and which 
strike me as vividly as though I were Rembrandt or only Gerard 
Dow. Then comes a deep inner emotion, a kind of leaping 
forth of the spirit, a not to be realized longing to fix these pic- 
tures, a joy at having seized upon them, an impulse of the heart 
towards those who compose them. Have you not also had these 
thoughts, during those silent contemplations in which we have 
so often seen you plunged, while teazing one unlucky tress of 
your hair ? How many times this year have I been seized with 
an unconquerable irritation in the very midst of our dear com- 
panions, and our wildest evenings. And how many times, when 
returning to the saloon, after hastily traversing the withered 
alleys at the end of which the moon was rising, have I been 
delighted and surprised at the naive beauty of these pictures after 
the Flemish school ! Dutheil, wrapped up in his grotesque 
great coat, whose colour Hoffmann would have said 'resembled 
the key of F with one flat, with his raisin coloured cap upon 
his head, and raising his stone jug, filled with the modest 
nectar of the neighbouring hillside, has he not as red and shining 
a physiognomy as has ever been sketched by Teniers ? Silence • 



144 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

his eye is kindling, his beard erecting itself; he throws forward 
his head like that of a buffalo preparing for defence. He is 
going to sing : listen, what a profoundly religious and philoso- 
phical song. 

Le bonheur et Je malheur Happiness and unhappiness 

Nous viennent du meme Auteur, Come to us from the same hand, 

Voila la ressemblance ; Behold their resemblance ; 

Le bonheur nous rend heureux Happiness makes us happj, 

Et le malheur malheureux Unhappiness unhappy 

Voila la difference. Behold their difference. 

This beautiful ode is by Monsieur de Bievre. I have never 
heard any thing more sadly stupid ; and whilst our companions 
are heartily laughing at this country platitude, to me there 
always comes a feeling of sadness whilst listening to it. Do you 
not know that all is said, both before God and man, when an 
unfortunate being demands a reason for his unhappiness, and 
this reply is all he obtains. What is there besides ? Nothing. 
The eternal rule which measures out good and evil to us is 
entirely comprised there : it is like the tooth-ache, to which 
the other day I was comparing all our moral evils. Is there any 
human complaint rising from this earth, meriting any other 
attention than the irony at once bitter and sweet given by another 
unfortunate, half consoled by wine, who gravely states your grief 
as a remarkable fact ? 

When DutheiFs terrible voice has left off shaking all the 
windows, there comes my brother, practising steps about as 
graceful as those of any bear trying to walk upon the brink of a 
precipice. Alphonso, sitting on the ground, is playing on the 
violin with the tongs and shovel ; and his large profile ct la Dante 
is shadowed on the wall, his laughter making its severe outlines 
yet more hollow and lugubrious. Charles keeps flitting round 
them like an evil spirit, in a mocking humour, always ready to 
overset a glass of wine in the drinker's sleeve, or to trip up an 
unsteady dancer. Oh ! as for these, these indeed my old friends, 
of former days, they know that one may be very gay and very 
sad at the same time ; and, who are easily happy in the felicity of 
another, and commence life afresh after each new suffering. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 145 

And of what should they complain ? these spoiled children of 
destiny ! Look at that charming group round the piano. It is 
composed of their wives and their sisters ; there are Agasta and 
Felicia, those two sisters 'so tenderly united, so good, so kind, 
and so archly naive ! there are Laura and her mother, both so 
beautiful, so noble, so pure ! there is Brigitta, with her black 
eyes and brilliant gaiety, there is our lovely Rozana and our 
pretty Fleming, Eugenia. Do you know any thing more fresh, 
more sweet than these flowers of the provinces, blooming in true 
sun-light, far from the hot-houses in which our women of the cities 
fade from their very birth ? How heavenly does Laura look with 
her paleness, and her large black eyes so languid and holy in 
their glances. How charming is Agasta with her cheeks like a 
Bengal rose blossoming on snow, her coquettish and nonchalante 
manners, her sweet native pronunciation and her little white nun's 
cap ! Felicia's indolence has something in it more sad, hers is a 
melancholy smile. Love and grief have left their traces there, 
and resignation and self-denial have put their seal upon that 
calm brow, which has bowed so often in the tears of Christian 
prayer. For what weepest thou, fair Roman ? Hast thou not 
in the midst of thy griefs preserved the precious treasure of 
goodness to others, which unhappy women so easily forget ? 
My friend, how good it is to live amongst people so little artificial, 
amongst women as lovely in heart as in face, amongst men, 
laborious, firm, sincere, and religious in their friendship. Come 
often here, you will be cured. 

Now, if you ask me why, bein^ so happy, I always go away 
as winter sets in, I will tell you, but keep it to yourself. It is 
quite impossible for me, now, to be really happy in any situation 
whatever. Friendship is one of God's purest blessings to us, 
but it is one which has never remained long with me, and I shall 
die without the dream of my life being realized. To divide one's 
heart into ten or twelve portions, is very easy, very sweet, and 
very amiable. It is charming to be the good uncle of a joyous 
troop of children ; it is touching to grow old in the midst of an 
adopted family, in one's native place, but my happiness com- 
pared with the happiness of those who surround me, bears a great 
resemblance to the fortune . of a poor man, which is composed 



146 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

of the alms of the rich. The men and women here whose faces 
always wear a smile, are all either unitedly love, or the exclusive 
friendship of marriage. And I, old friend, like you, I am the 
other self of no one. It matters little that I am getting old, but 
it matters much that I grow old, alone. But I have not met the 
being with whom I could have lived and died, or if I have met, I 
have not known how to keep him. Listen to this story and weep. 

There was a clever artist, called Watelet, who was a better en- 
graver than any of his contemporaries. He loved Marguerite 
le Conte, and 'taught her how to engrave as well as himself. 
She left her husband, her fortune and her country to live with 
Watelet. The world condemned them, but as they were poor 
and humble, they were soon forgotten. Forty years after in the 
environs of Paris, in a little house called the Moulin- Joli* an old 
man was discovered, an engraver, and an old woman whom he 
called his Meuniere,j and who, seated at the same table was also 
an engraver. The first idler who discovered this marvel told it 
to others, and the beau monde ran in crowds to Moulin Jolt to see 
this phenomena. A love lasting forty years, an industry so 
assiduous, and so beloved ; two twin talents ; Philemon and 
Baucis discovered in the reign of Mesdames Pompadour and 
Dubarry ! It was quite an event, and the miraculous couple 
had their flatterers, their friends, their poets, their admirers. 
Happily they both died of old age some few days after ; the 
world would have spoiled all. The last drawing they engraved, 
represented Le Moulin Joli, Marguerite's bouse, with this motto: 
" Cur valle permutem divitias Sabina operosiores ?" : 

This engraving is framed in my chamber and hangs over a 
portrait of which no one here has seen the original. During a year, 
the being; who left me this portrait, was seated at the same small 
table with me, and he gained his bread by the same labour as I 
did.. . At daybreak, we consulted each other on our work, and we 
supped at the same little table, conversing of art, sentiment, and 
the future. But to us the future has not kept its promise. Pray 
for me, oh Marguerite Le Conte ! 

And yet, in truth, friend, the more I think of it, the more I 
see it is too late to dare to be unhappy. We can no longer look 
♦ Pretty Mill. t Milleress. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 147 

at life seriously, at least the life which is before us ; for the life 
we have left behind us, we have believed in, it has existed. Have 
you recapitulated to yourself the anxious painful journey which 
conducts us from the cradle to the crutch ? I know the journey dif- 
fers according to the man, and that there are no two human exist- 
ences absolutely similar, any more than there are two leaves pre* 
cisely alike in a forest ; but one general view may be drawn from 
all, which will embrace the thousand details of which the diversity 
may be composed. If we only regard the organic system of 
man, we may say he is always the same, for as to his physical 
development, he has always one head, two arms, a trunk, &c, 
and his intellectual system is always composed of the same pas- 
sions, pride, anger, licentiousness, the desire for good and evil 
in divers proportions, and still always dividing and disputing the 
dominion of man, entering into him and making his moral life, 
like the nervous and arterial systems compose his material life. 
Thus I think I may sum up the history of all by summing up 
my own. At the beginning, strength, ardour, ignorance. Mid- 
way, use of strength, realization of desire, science of life. At 
the decline of life, disgust of action, fatigue, doubt, apathy ; and, 
then, the tomb, which offers itself as a couch to receive the pil- 
grim wearied with his day's work. — Oh, providence ! 

Youth is the portion of human life which varies the least, 
amongst all individuals ; manhood, that which differs the most. 
All age is the result of this period and differs accordingly ; but 
the weakening of the faculties confounds their distinctions, like 
distance weakening colours, and throwing over them its indistinct 
veil. 

It is almost impossible to know what a man will be, difficult 
to know what he is, but easy to know what he has been. One 
must neither distrust, nor trust blindly in young people ; and one 
must take great care not to depend upon men, nor to condemn 
them ; all is yet within them, the metal in a state of fusion is run- 
ning into the mould, God alone knows what |the statue will be. 
As for old men, whatever they may be, pity must be felt for them. 

For my part, I have seen how miserable and terrible, at 
the same time, is that youthful strength which does not obey 
our call, which carries us whither we wish not to go, and betrays 
us when we have need of it ; and I should now be astonished at 



148 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

having been so proud of possessing it, did I not know that man's 
vanity draws food from every thing, from beauty, a gift of chance, 
to wisdom, which is the result of experience ; to be proud of 
one's strength is just as reasonable as to have slept well, and to 
have one's legs in good order for a long journey ; but beware the 
stones by the way-side. Oh ! how highly we think of our 
powers of walking when we are setting out, and our shoes are 
just new from the workman. I remember the impatience I 
felt to start forward on my road with waterproof boots. 
" Who will stop me ?" said I, " upon what thorns, what rub- 
bish can I not trample, without fear of wound or stain ? Where 
are the obstacles, where are the mountains, the seas, I shall not 
pass over?" I was forgetting the pitfalls on the road. 

And when I first began to use my strength, none but good 
and beautiful effects resulted from it ; for my baggage was all 
good, and my pockets filled with the most beautiful books in 
the world. I condescended to read about Plutarch's great men, 
and to grasp hands with them in some holy vision in which my 
pride illumined the magic atmosphere. 

And through my own pride in my strength and gait, I ima- 
gined I could not fall, and I loudly declared my belief to all my 
friends and acquaintances. Then amongst all these friends it 
was proclaimed that I was nothing less than a stoic of ancient 
times, who had the goodness to dress himself in coat and boots. 

Nevertheless, as 1 walked very fast, and scarcely looked at the 
ground, it happened that I stumbled against a stone and fell 
down ; I felt the pain in my foot, and mortification in my soul. 
But rising quickly, and thinking no one saw me, I went on say- 
ing, "this was an accident, quite a fatality, 1 ' and I began to have 
faith in fatality, which until then, I had boldly denied. 

But I hurt myself again, and fell down often. One day I 
perceived that I was wounded and bleeding, and that my appear- 
ance, so torn and muddy, made the passers-by laugh at me, more 
especially as I still carried myself with a majestic air, which 
only made me more grotesque. At last I was obliged to seat 
myself by the way- side, on a stone, and I began sadly to look 
upon my rags and my wounds. 

But my pride, at first, cast down and suffering, raised its head 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 149 

again, and decided that I was not the less a good walker and 
stone- breaker,* although I had almost broken my back with over- 
walking. I forgave myself for all my falls, thinking it had been 
quite out of my power to prevent them, that destiny had been 
stronger than I, that Satan had been playing his part in all this 
mischief, and a thousand other excuses, invented to obscure to 
oneself and others, the avowal of one's own weakness, and the 
contempt each must sometimes feel for himself, if he is candid 
to his own soul. 

And I continued my route, limping and falling, always de- 
claring I walked very well, that the falls were not falls, that the 
stones were not stones ; and although many laughed at me, and 
with good reason, yet many took me at my word, because I was 
gifted with what artists call poetry, but what soldiers call blague.] 
- Lord Byron was just then giving a great example of what 
human presumption could do by clothing the pettiest vanities 
in purple and setting them in gold like diamonds ; this lame 
man mounted on his stilts and walked over every one who was 
blessed with more equal footing ; this succeeded with him, be- 
cause his stilts were solid, and magnificent, and he knew well 
how to use them. 

As for us, apes as we are, we all learn more or less well to 
walk upon our stilts, and even to dance on the tight rope, to 
the great admiration of the- idlers standing by, who know nothing 
at all about it. And we, I, above all, unhappy as I am ! I neg- 
lected pure and modest pleasures, I despised simple and obscure 
virtues, I mocked the devotees, I yielded increase to overbearing 
glory, and swelling with vanity, I pardoned no weakness in 
others, I, who had vices in my own heart. Neither would I 
make any sacrifice, for nothing in the world seemed to me so 
precious as my repose, my pleasure and my praises. 

Now, can you imagine, Francois, how after all this I have 
changed into an endurable old man, of gentle manners, modest 
in his expressions and in his pretensions ? Do you know what 
makes the difference between a man who is corrupted and a man 
who has simply wandered from the right ? Certainly, both of 
them have done foolish and evil deeds, but the one ceases to do 

* u Casseur de pierres.'* + Blague, humbug or blarney. 

K 



150 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

so, and the other continues ; one grows old in his wooden shoes 
in his hermitage, or in his dressing gown in a garret with a few 
friends, whilst the other cravats and perfumes every evening, a 
mummy, which presumes to adopt the air of a living being, 
and which one morning may be found as dust at the bottom of an 
alembic. 

The man who perceives too late that he has taken the wrong 
route, and who has no longer strength to retrace his steps, may, 
at least, stop, and cry mournfully to those who are still advanc- 
ing. " Pass not by, here ; it is here I lost my way/' The wicked 
man finds pleasure in it, he advances on the route until his last 
hour, and dies of ennui when he has exhausted all the evil which 
a man can do. Another pleases himself by dragging after him 
as many unfortunates as he can, he laughs at seeing them fall into 
the mire, in their turn, and amuses himself by trying to per- 
suade them that this mire is a precious essence with which only 
great minds and fashionable people have any right to anoint and 
embalm themselves. 

In all this, Frangois, I find no great consolation for us, there 
is no great merit in our not being one of such as these. Have 
not we mingled in their feasts, have not we also drunk the poison 
of vanity and lying ? If the open air has carried off our intoxica- 
tion, it is because either providence or chance made us quit the 
fatal atmosphere and forced us to remain in a field rather than 
in a palace. My friend, that which is called virtue, certainly 
exists, but only in some exceptional characters, amongst such 
as we are, what we call goodness, is merely the sentiment of 
good, and aversion towards evil. Now on what does it depend 
I ask you, that this poor germ blown about by every wind, does 
not lose itself in the distance when we expose it so lightly to the 
storm ? When one thinks of the facility with which it flies 
away, ought we to rise very much in our own opinion for escap- 
ing the danger as if by miracle ? What a pale blossom is the 
honour yet remaining to us ! Where is the seraph who covered 
it with his pinions ? where is the ray which has reanimated it ? 
It is all very well for the good seed to fall in good ground ; but if 
the birds of the air should alight there, they will devour it. Whose 
then is the hand which hinders them ? Oh, God ! a feeling of terror 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 151 

seizes upon a soul touched by thy benefits, when it looks back 
upon the past. 

But you, my friend, you have been able to make reparation. 
It was not too late for you when you arrested your course ; you 
returned to the point of departure, and there you found an 
onerous duty, a noble labour, and you accepted it with joy. Oh 
Francois, you had the past and its fatal habits to combat, to 
support the present and its gnawing cares ; you have fought the 
fight with these dragons ; your loins are strong as those of the 
archangel Michael, for you have vanquished. I who am old, 
who have not found a mother to console, and twelve children 
depending on my labour for bread, I weep, I pray, and cry out 
sometimes : 

" Come to me, descend from Heaven, alight upon my weary 
head, oh Dove of the Holy Spirit ! divine poetry ! sentiment of 
eternal beauty, love of nature in her youth and fruitfulness ; 
fusion of the great whole with the human soul which can de- 
tach itself and yield to thee ! sad and mysterious joy which 
God sends to his despairing children, emotions which seem to 
summon them to some unknown and sublime achievement, de- 
sire of death, desire of life, lightning which gleams before the 
eyes in the midst of darkness, ray which breaks through the clouds 
and clothes the Heavens with unexpected splendour, last agony 
in which a future life beams forth, fatal vigour, only belonging 
to despair, come to me, I have lost all upon this earth !" 

Winter is extending his grey veil over the saddened earth : 
the cold wind whistles and howls around our dwellings. But 
sometimes at noon, purple gleams break through the fog, and light 
up the dark hangings of my chamber. Then my bengali* be- 
comes agitated, and sighs in his cage, when he sees on the leaf- 
less lilacs in the garden a troop of silent sparrows with their 
feathers ruffled up and dreaming in melancholy beatitude. The 
branches of the trees are darkly outlined on the atmosphere 
filled with white frost. The heath, covered with its brown 
pods, throws up a little cluster of buds which are endeavouring 
to blossom. The earth, slightly moist, no longer cracks under 

* A Bird. 



152 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

the children's tread. All is silence, regret and tenderness. 
The sun comes to bid adieu to the earth, the frost is melting, 
and tears are falling everywhere ; vegetation seems making a 
last effort to cling to life, but the last kiss of her spouse is so 
faint that the Bengal roses drop their leaves without having 
been able to blush forth and blossom. Behold the cold, — 
night, — death. 

This last ray of the sun shining through my windows, is my last 
remaining hope. To love all these objects, to weep over the 
departing autumn, to salute the returning spring, to count the 
first or last blossoms of the trees, to entice the sparrows to my 
window, this is all which remains to me of a life once so full 
and ardent. The winter of my soul has come ; an eternal 
winter ! There was a time when I regarded neither the heaven 
nor the flowers, when I neither disquieted myself for the sun's 
absence, nor pitied the sparrows frozen on the branches. On 
my knees before the altar where the sacred fire was burning, I 
shed upon it all the perfume of my heart. All that God has 
given to man of strength and youth, of aspiration and intoxica- 
tion, I consumed and reanimated by this flame kindled by another 
love. To day, the altar is overthrown, the sacred fire extinct, 
a faint smoke still rises and seeks to rejoin the flame which no 
longer exists ; it is my love exhaling itself and seeking to em- 
brace the soul by which itself was kindled. But that soul has 
fled towards heaven, and mine languishes and perishes on the 
earth. 

Now that my soul is widowed, there is nothing remaining 
for it, but to see and listen to God in his exterior manifesta- 
tions ; for God is no longer in me, and if I can yet rejoice, it 
is at that which passes around me. I will then proclaim thy 
goodness towards other men, oh God who hast abandoned me ! 
I will no longer live. I will watch and I will demonstrate ; from 
the depths of my grief, I will declare with a loud voice, so as to 
be heard by the passers by, these words, "Leave this path, here 
there is an abyss, and I who passed too near, have fallen within.' ' 
I will say to them also — "You have strayed, because you are deaf 
and blind, it was because I was so also, that I too strayed. I have 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 153 

regained hearing and sight; but to discover that I was at the 
bottom of the precipice, and that I could no longer return with 
you. I was old !" 

Many like me have fallen into the abysses of despair. This 
world is immense, it is like a world of the dead which stirs 
and agitates itself beneath a world of the living. Something 
dark and gloomy, a phantom clothed and bearing a name, an 
indolent and broken frame, a pale and mournful visage, wanders 
still through human society, and still bears about the appearances 
of life. But our souls are below, plunged in the bitter waters 
of Erebus, and our young men know no more what is passing 
there, than the child in the cradle knows of death. But this 
gulf without any outlet has many degrees of depth, and various 
races of men mount and descend its steps. Tears and laughter 
issue from the entrails of this hell. In the lowest depths are 
those the most fallen, the most brutish, who sleep in the degra- 
dation of pleasure which may not be named ; not quite so low, 
are those who furiously cry and blaspheme against God whom 
they have not known and who has struck them down ; elsewhere 
are the cynics, who ( &eny virtue and happiness, and who seek 
to make others fall as low as themselves. But there are some 
who raise themselves above the poisonous miasma of their 
Tartarus, and who seating themselves on the first steps of these 
fatal stairs, say : "God, since I can no longer repass the thresh- 
hold, I will die here, I will descend no lower. They weep and la- 
ment, they are still near enough to God, to know what they might 
have been and what they ought to have done. They still hope 
in another life, for they have kept the sentiment of eternal 
beauty, and the means of its possession. Those repent and 
work, not for the sake of re-entrance into this mortal life, but 
towards its expiation, they proclaim the truth to men, without 
fear of wounding them, for those who are no longer of this 
world, have no longer any thing to care for, anything to fear ; 
none can do good or evil to them, none can make them fall 
— they precipitate themselves — May they, like Curtius, ap- 
pease celestial anger, and may the abyss close behind them ! 

But it seems to me, Francois, that I am becoming emphatic ; 
happily I see my old Malgache coming ; it is fifteen months 



154 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

since I saw him ; lie is coming, breathless and palpitating with 
joy. Here he is under my window ; but, the devil, he stops, he 
has just seen a mal-formed violet, he gathers it, and begins to 
think. Behold me effaced from his memory, if I do not go to 
meet him, he will go back with his monster of a violet, without 
seeing me. I must go to him. Adieu, Pylades. 



THE END OF PAKT THE FIRST. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 



LETTER VI. 



TO EVERARD. 

11th April, 1835. 

Your friend the traveller arrived at home without any accident ; 
and feels proud and happy at the remembrance you have pre- 
served of him. He had not nattered himself much on this 
point ; he believed that a soul so active, so eager as yours would 
receive the least impressions vividly, but lose them also as 
quickly to give place to others. It is a duty and a necessity for 
you to be thus ; you do not belong to a few select souls, you 
belong to all men, or rather all men belong to you. Poor man 
of genius ! this must fatigue you very much. What a mission 
is yours ! a keeper of swine ; Apollo at the court of Admetus. 

But what is worst for you, is, that in the midst of your flocks, 
in the depths of your stables, you remember your divinity, and 
when you see a bird pursuing its way, you envy its flight and 
regret your heaven. Why cannot I bear you with me on the 
wings of the changing winds, and make you breathe the un- 
confined air of solitude, and teach you the secret of poets and 
of Bohemians ! But it is not God's will. He has cast you 
down like Satan, like Vulcan, like all other emblems of the 
grandeur and misfortunes of genius in this world. Behold 
yourself employed in ignoble labours, nailed to your cross, 

L 



156 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER, 

chained to the miserable galley of human ambition. Go, and 
may he who has endowed you with strength and sorrow as your 
portion, surround the crown of thorns with a long enduring 
halo, which you will attain at the price of liberty, happiness 
and life. 

For, as to the philanthropy of which you reformers have the hu- 
mility to boast, I ask your pardon, but I do not believe in it. Phi- 
lanthropy makes sisters of charity. The love of glory is another 
thing, and produces other destinies. Sublime hypocrite, speak 
not thus to me, you misjudge yourself in taking that for a sen- 
timent of duty which is nothing but the inevitable and fatal 
declivity down which your instinctive strength is drawing you. 
As for me, I know that you are not one of those who observe 
duties, but of those who impose them. You love not men, you 
are not their brother, for you are not their equal. You are an 
exception amongst them, you are born a king. 

Ah ! this vexes you ; but in reality, you know well, there is a 
royalty which is of divine institution. Had God intended to 
found the principle of equality amongst men as you understand 
it, he would have shared amongst them an equal portion of in- 
telligence and virtue, but he forms great men to govern little men, 
as he has made the cedar protect the hyssop. The enthusiastic 
and almost despotic influence which you exercise here, in the 
middle of France, where all who can think and feel incline' 
themselves before your superiority, (to such a point that I, 
myself, the most insignificant individual who ever turned life 
into a hedge school, I am forced to go every year to pay my 
homage to you) tell me is this anything less than royalty ? your 
majesty cannot deny it. Sire the] foulard with which you crown 
yourself after the fashion of a toupee, is the crown of Aqui- 
taine whilst waiting for a better still. Your seat in the open 
air is a throne ; Fleury the Gaul is your captain of the guards ; 
Planet is your jester, and I, if you permit me, I will be your 
historian ; but morbleu, Sire ! you must behave well, for the 
higher the augury your humble bard draws for you, the more he 
will insist upon your reaching the goal, and you know it is not 
much easier to keep him quiet than the barber of King Midas. 
Andliere I must ask pardon for giving the title of King to the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 157 

late Midas. It is well known, he was not one of your cousins, 
but a king springing from human institutions j one of those 
beautiful types of legitimate kings whose ears grow quite natu- 
rally under the hereditary diadem. 

Think you that I dispute your rights ? Oh no, truly not : 
we shall never dispute on that point. One man is born to be a 
jockey, you are born a prince of the earth. As for myself, a poor 
writer of allegories, I feel ill sheltered under the umbrella of 
royalty, nevertheless I have no wish to support it myself, I 
should set badly about it, and all the thrones of the world are 
not worth to me a little flower growing by a lake amongst the 
Alps. But it would be a great question to solve whether God 
loves and estimates our physical frame as well as he does the 
balmy petals of the jasmine. I see that nature has taken as 
much care of the violet's beauty as of woman's, that the 
lilies of the fields are better arrayed than Solomon in all his 
glory, and for them I keep my worship and my love. Go, all 
the rest of you, make war, make laws. You say I never 
draw any conclusion ; — much I care to draw any conclusion ! I 
shall go and write your name and mine on the sands of the 
Hellespont in three months time ; and the next day there will 
remain as many traces as there will remain of my books after 
my death, and perhaps, alas, [of thy actions, oh Marius ! after 
the puff of wind, which will restore the fortune of the Syllas 
and the Napoleons upon the field of battle. 

It is not that I am deserting your cause in the least ;— of all 
causes, about which I care little, young and unbearded as I am, 
it is the most beautiful and the most noble. I cannot even 
conceive that poets can have any other ; for if all words were 
empty sounds, at least those of country and liberty are har- 
monious, whilst those of legitimacy and obedience are repulsive, 
evil sounding, and fit only for the ears of gendarmes. A 
brave people may be flattered, but to cringe to a crowned log, 
is to renounce the dignity of a man. For my part, I flee from 
the noise of human clamour, and I go to listen to the voice of 
torrents. You may feel assured that I shall pray the spirit of 
the lakes and the fairy of the glaciers to wing their flight some- 
times towards you, and to carry in the breeze with them a per- 

l 2 



358 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

fume from the desert, a dream of liberty, an affectionate re- 
membrance of your friend the traveller. I am but a bird of 
passage in human life, I make no nest, and seek no love upon 
this earth ; I shall tap with my beak from time to time at your 
window, and bring news of the creation through your prison 
bars, and then I shall resume my inconstant flight in the aerial 
fields, catching flies for my nourishment while you share fetters 
and chains with your equals ! Your ambition is a noble and 
magnificent one, oh ye men of destiny. Of all the toys with 
which humanity amuses itself, you have chosen the least puerile, 
glory ! Yes, glory is beautiful indeed ! Achilles chose a sword 
amongst all the jewels which were presented to him ; you all of 
you choose the martyrdom of a lofty ambition, in the stead of 
money, titles and all the petty vanities which charm the vulgar 
herd. Generous madmen as you are, govern these foolish crea- 
tures well for me, and be not sparing of stripes to them, I shall 
go and sing upon a branch during the time. You will listen 
to me when you have nothing better to do ! you will come 
and sit under my tree when you want rest and amusement. 
Good evening, my brother Everard, brother and king, not in 
right of age, but in right of virtue. I love you with my 
Avhole heart, and am Sire your Majesty's very humble and very 
faithful subject. 

15th April. 

You ask me many questions to which I should like to be able 
to give an answer, if it were only to show you how attentive 
I am to all which proceeds from your pen. To proceed after 
the manner of my dear Franklin, here they are, in the order in 
which you have placed them: 1st. Why am I so sad? 2nd. 
If I were not so different from you in all respects, should you 
love me so much ? 3rd. Do you occupy any space in our dis- 
course ? 4th. When shall I arrive at any conclusion? 5th. 
When can you sit down with me in the long grass, on the 
banks of some torrent ? kc. 

Yesterday I answered your first question, saying, that working 
for glory is at once the part of an emperor and a galley slave ; 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 159 

and that you are confined within your own strength of volition 
as within a fortress, and that the least insect which buzzes with 
its wings against the window of your dungeon, sends a shudder 
through you, and wakes in you the mournful remembrance of 
your captivity. Take courage, Prometheus ! you are greater, 
chained to your rock, with the vulture's talons in your heart, 
than the fauns of the woods in their liberty. This is the place 
to answer your fifth question, " When shall I sit with you," &c. 
Never Everard, unless an enemy's army were on the other side, 
and you were waiting the signal for combat. But you forget 
the conflict, and slumber amongst the reeds ! you } I should 
like to know what were the thoughts of Marius in the marshes 
of Minturnus ; most surely he did not hold converse with the 
peaceable Naiads. Men of tumult come not to bathe your 
dusty and bleeding feet in the pure waves which murmur for 
our ears, it is to us, inoffensive dreamers, that the mountain 
streams belong ; it is to us they whisper of repose and oblivion, 
traditions of our humble happiness which would make you 
laugh in pity. Leave us this, we yield all the rest to you, the 
laurels and the altars, the labour and the triumph. If some 
day, wounded in the struggle or prisoner on parole, you come 
and sit by your brother the Bohemian, we will watch the 
heavens together, and I will discourse to you of the stars which 
reign over the destiny of mortals. This, I know will be the 
only subject to interest you, all that you will see in the limpid 
waters, will be the vague and trembling reflection of your star, 
and you will hasten to seek for it in the celestial vault in order 
to assure yourself it still shines there with all accustomed 
splendour. No, you will not love those silent valleys where the 
eagle is lord, instead of man, and those lakes where the faint- 
est cry of the wild duck finds more echo than your words. 
Deserts which you cannot subject either by the plough or the 
sword, steep rocks, a rebellious soil, impenetrable forests, where 
the artist goes to evoke the rural divinities intrenched there 
against the assaults of human industry, all this is not the coun- 
try for your intellect. You must have towns, fields, soldiers, 
workmen, commerce, labour, all the equipage of power, all the 
aliments which the necessities of man offer up to the pride of 



160 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

the gods. The gocls dominate and protect ; when you say that 
you bear these poor human pigmies in your bosom, you mean 
to say, Hercules, that you bear them in your lion's skin, but you 
cannot slumber in the shadow of a wood, without their eagerly 
awakening you. They will torment you in your dreams, and 
the storms of your soul will trouble the serenity of the at- 
mosphere to the very summit of Mont Blanc. My poor brother, 
I love my pilgrim's staff better than your sceptre. But since 
the royalty of your intelligence has invested you with a fiery 
crown, since the desire to be great entered into you with your 
life blood, since you cannot abdicate, and repose would destroy 
you sooner than fatigue, far from contemplating your destiny 
with that cold philosophy which the sentiment of my own im- 
potence might suggest, I must unceasingly pity and admire you, 
oh sublime wretch ! But, good for nothing myself but talk- 
ing with Echo, gazing at the rising moon, composing melancholy 
or mocking songs for poetical or amorous students, I have con- 
tracted, as I told you yesterday, the habit of turning my life into 
a hedge school, where all lessons consist in giving chase to a 
butterfly along the hedges, falling with my face amongst thorns, 
striving after a flower which withers in my hand before I have 
enjoyed its odour, singing with the thrushes and sleeping under 
the first willow I come to, without regard either to the hour or 
to pedagogues. The best thing I can do for you is, to plant a 
laurel dedicated to you in my garden. Whenever I hear of 
one of your good actions, I will send you a leaf, and you will 
remember for a moment one who laughs at all ideas represented 
by mere pedants, but who bends with reverence before a great 
heart imbued with justice. 

Second question," If you were not so different from me, should I 
love you so much?" This is my answer, No, certainly not, you would 
not love me in the same way. Now you are pleased with me for having 
a little strength in a frame so frail, and in so humble a condition. 
You esteem me in proportion to the difficulty you imagine it has been 
for me to become a little estimable in social circumstances, where 
every thing tends to degrade the soul of those who follow their 
course. You believe me probably very superior now to what 
I have been heretofore, and you do not deceive yourself. My 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 161 

remembrances are not calculated to cause me much, pride ; but 
the good which I have yet retained in my soul consoles me a 
little for the past, and gives me assurance of happy friendship 
both for the present and the future. This is all I need for the 
future. I feel no ambition of any sort, and the little noise 
which I may make as an artist does not inspire me with any 
jealousy towards those who deserve to enjoy much more re- 
nown. Passions and fancies have made me extremely unhappy 
in past time but I have radically cured myself of any fancies by 
my own will, and I shall soon be cured of passions by ad- 
vancing age and reflection. In all other respects, I am and 
have always been perfectly happy, and consequently good 
hearted and just in all cases, except cases of love, in which I 
become ill and splenetic and rash. 

3rd. " Do I occupy any place in your discourse ?" There is 
nothing talked of but you. How can the limbs forget the heart 
from w T hence flows all their life-blood ? Before I saw you, this 
made me so impatient that I was actually obliged to go and see 
you again this year, that I might be able to say on my return, 
like the others, " Everard thinks ". . . . " Everard wishes ". . . . 
" Everard told me "... . May all this idolatry not spoil you ! 

4th. " When will you arrive at any conclusion r and if you should 
die without coming to any ?" Faith, let the little George die when 
God wills, the world will not go on worse for being ignorant of 
his way of thinking. What do you wish me to say to you ? it 
will be necessary for me to speak again of myself, and nothing 
is so insipid as an individual who has not yet discovered the key 
to his destiny. I have no interest tending to formulate * any 
opinion whatever. Those who read my books, are wrong in 
believing that my conduct is a profession of faith, and the choice 
of the subject of my tales a kind of pleading against certain 
laws. Far from it, I own that my life is full of faults, and I 
should think I was committing a moral crime if I lashed my 
sides to find a philosophy which would authorize them. On the 
other hand, not being able to regard certain realities of life with 
enthusiasm, I cannot look upon these faults as grave enough to 

* Formuler. 



162 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

require reparation or expiation. To require 'either would do 
them too much honour, and I do not see that my faults have 
prevented those who complain the most of them from getting on 
extremely well. All those who have known me long love me 
enough to judge me indulgently and'to pardon the evil I may have 
committed. My writings, having never come to any decision, 
have done neither good nor harm. , I ask no better than to give 
them a definite conclusion or moral,"' if I find one myself; but 
this is not yet accomplished, and I know too little upon certain 
subjects to dare to advance any opinion. I have a horror of the 
pedantry of virtue. It may be useful in the world ; for my 
part I am too honest to endeavour to reconcile myself by an act 
of hypocrisy to the severities which my irresolution (a courageous 
and loyal irresolution, I dare to affirm,) draws down upon me. 
I must bear this rigour, however painful it may be to me, whilst 
I cannot feel that I have the intimate conviction for which I 
wait. Do you blame me ? I am in but a small circle of things, 
and nevertheless by the aid of a microscope, you may compare 
it to that in which you are existing. Would you, in order to 
acquire more popularity or renown, feign to adopt the opinions 
they wish to impose upon you," and propose as an article of faith 
to yourself that which as yet was only in an embryo state in 
your conscience ? I care too much for your esteem not to speak 
openly as to the situation of my mind, I have been rather long ; 
pardon me for having spoken seriously of the serious side of my 
life ; it is not my custom. Adieu, I send you a packet of printed 
papers, which I have chosen for you amongst my collection, alas! 
a too voluminous one. 



18th Apeil. 

You reproach'me seriously, my' friend, with my social atheism; 
you say that nothing which is not comprised within the doctrine 
of utility can be truly good or truly beautiful. You say that my 
indifference is culpable, a bad example, and that I must get rid 
of it by a moral suicide, cutting off my right hand, and never 
conversing with mankind. You are very severe, but I like you 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 163 

for being so, it is right and worthy of you. You say also that 
every system of non-intervention is the excuse of cowardice or 
egotism, because there is no human thing which is not either 
advantageous or hurtful to humanity. Whatever my ambition 
may be, you say, whether I wish to be admired, whether I wish 
to be loved, I must be charitable, and charitable with discern- 
ment, with reflection, with science, that is to say, with philan- 
thropy. I usually reply with a jest or a sophism to those who 
hold this language to me ; but here the case is different, I recog- 
nise in you the right to pronounce these grand words of morality, 
which I dare hardly repeat after you. I have always been a 
restive spirit, and the fault lies with those who tried to baptize 
me with impure hands. If the stain of sin is to be washed away, 
it must be by a John the Baptist, for the humblest catechumen, 
as for Christ himself, and Magdalen's hair must not wipe the 
feet of those who still continue in the error of their ways. 

But you who question me, have you quitted the dangerous 
paths where your youth led you? Withdrawn into the sanctuary 
of your own will, have you practised, in these years of severe 
reflection, the antique virtues which you prize above all : tem- 
perance, charity, labour, constancy, disinterestedness, the holy 
simplicity of John Huss r Yes, you have done so. I know it. 
Well then ! Speak ! my pride revolts only against those no greater 
than myself, who wish to see me at their feet. You have not 
only the power of the intellect, but the strength of the heart. 
Speak ! I will reply as to a lawful judge, and will obey you by 
speaking of myself as much as you will, for I confess there was 
more of culpable idleness on my part in avoiding it than true 
modesty. 

Oh, my brother ! this is a grave discussion, a grave epoch in 
my poor existence. I did not come here with a feeling of en- 
thusiastic self-abnegation, but with a serious desire of seeing 
nothing in you but the truly beautiful parts of your character. 
I was armed against those magnetic effects, which are always to 
be feared on coming in contact with superior men. Therefore 
I can say I was not dazzled by the charm you exercise over 
others ; the Roman outlines of your brow, the power of your 
speech, the brilliancy and abundance of your thoughts have 



164 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

never occupied me. That which has touched and convinced me 
has been that which I have heard you say, that which I have 
seen you do, in all simplicity, a kind or naive word in the midst 
of the greatest excitement, a familiarity at once rude and 
chaste, an exquisite purity in all your expressions and senti- 
ments. A more foolish calumny could not be invented against 
you than that of cupidity. I should like to know in what your 
political enemies could prove that money is so desirable to a 
man without vices, without whims, and who has neither mis- 
tresses, nor picture galleries, nor collections of medals, nor Eng- 
lish horses, nor luxury nor effeminacy of any kind. This is 
much, Everard, this freedom from all vice is nearly every thing 
in my eyes. No one can throw a doubt over this, whilst qualities 
may deck themselves with names that do not belong to them. 
But who can suspect the tranquil sobriety with which a strong 
soul uses the good things of this life ? Of what equivoque, of 
what hypocrisy have the homely domestic virtues ever had 
need? 

You spoke to me about the immense organization of Mirabeau, 
a being kneaded with virtues and vices. I am not sufficiently 
an enthusiast for oddity to find the statue of diamond and clay 
more beautiful and more imposing than that of pure gold. My 
friend, Henry Heine, has said of Spinoza, " his private life was 
exempt from all blame ; and remained pure and without blemish 
like that of its divine example, Jesus Christ." These simple 
words make me love Spinoza. Perhaps it was only by this part 
of his character that my feeble intellect could appreciate its 
grandeur. There is also in you, my dear brother, a point of 
view in which I do not know you, because my intellect, power- 
less or indolent, has not penetrated into any science. I under- 
stand what you are, but not what you do. I see the mechanism 
of this beautiful idea-machine, but the value and use* of its pro- 
ducts are unknown and indifferent to me. I see that the word 
virtue is your formidable lever, and I know that in this word 
there is a sense always the same, and always magnificent, what- 
ever may be its application : abnegation and an eternal sacrifice 
of all vulgar gratifications of the mind or senses to a supreme 
and divine satisfaction : and consecration of our human existence 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 165 

to the worship of a vast and intelligent will, which is its altar 
fire. This is virtue, this is strength, this is the tendency of the 
soul, to elevate itself as high as possible, in order to embrace at 
once a higher view than the common herd, and to distribute the 
benefits of one's power through a wider field. This is a gene- 
rous ambition, this is faith, science, art, this comprehends all 
forms in which the Divinity manifests himself to man. This is 
the reason why to reign, even in virtue of rights the vulgarest 
and the most iniquitous, even at the price of repose and life, has 
always been such an ardent desire of mankind ; and one must 
not be astonished at it. To reign well or ill is to exercise an 
appearance of virtue and of moral right. If human expressions 
have a sense in the great book of nature, these two expressions 
are exact synonymes, and they are used so in our language fre- 
quently. I have written just above, " to reign in virtue of an 
iniquitous right," this is very good French, I believe, and in- 
volves no contradiction, that I know of. 

All that is difficult of accomplishment excites the surprise of 
mankind, and meets their admiration in direct proportion to the 
advantage which they may derive from this display of strength : 
and as nothing in all the works of God, can be in the eyes of 
man, of so much importance as his own existence, it is evident 
that what he calls the sentiment of natural justice, is the rational 
conviction of that which is useful to him. The most simple 
effort of this reasoning proves to him that he cannot live as a 
solitary being, that he has been, even when emerging from the 
most primitive state of existence that can be imagined, obliged 
to form association, and to group himself in colonies, under a 
system of laws dictated by the most skilful or the most powerful. 
Those who have succeeded in breaking these laws to serve their 
own personal interest, have commenced the eternal warfare be- 
tween the oppressors and the oppressed, the oppressed have 
conquered in their turn, and have become oppressors by right 
of conquest. In all this, where is justice ? 

Rise, ye chosen, ye divine men, who have invented virtue ! 
you have imagined a less gross felicity than that of sensual 
minds, but prouder than that of the warrior. You have discovered 
that in the love and gratitude of your brethren, there was more 



1GS LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

enjoyment to be found, than in all the possessions for which 
they were disputing. And then, retrenching from your life all 
those pleasures which made these men so similar one to the 
other, you have wisely stigmatised with the name of vice, all that 
rendered them happy, and consequently greedy, jealous, violent, 
and unsociable. You have renounced your portion of riches 
and pleasure in this world, and having rendered yourselves such 
as to excite neither jealousy nor mistrust, you have placed your- 
selves in the midst of them, like beneficent divinities to en- 
lighten them as to their interests, and to give them useful laws. 
You have told them it was better to give than to possess, and 
where you have had dominion, justice has reigned; what 
sophisms can dispute your excellence, sublime and vain as 
you are ? There is nothing in the world greater than your- 
selves, nothing more precious, nothing more necessary. 

Go, and speak of virtue ; a day will come when the sensualists 
who now mock you, combatting the avidity and vengeance of 
those who have not yet been able to satisfy the enjoyments 
of sense, will' understand that there is a fate more worthy of 
envy, and more sheltered from the storm than their own ; they 
will understand then that popular reason is hovering over the 
world, that it has forced the doors of the boudoirs, that it may 
arrogate to itself the right of enjoyment in its turn, and may 
send the vanquished to the plough, to the thatched roof, to the 
crucifix, the only consolation of the poor. Then they would 
indeed be happy to meet the hand of the virtuous man, to divide 
the blessings of the earth equally, between the rich and the 
poor, and to explain to both of them what justice really is. 

I know not whether a day will ever come, when man will 
decide infallibly and definitively as to what is really good for 
man. I am not able to examine all the details of the system 
which you have embraced, I was jesting about it the other day, 
but from the moment you reduce me to speaking reasonably, 
(which, I declare to you, is no slight victory of your strength 
over mine) I must confess to you that the law of division and 
equality, inapplicable as it may appear to those who are afraid 
of it, and uncertain as its reign upon earth seems to me, who 
see all these things as from the depths of a cell, is the first and 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. ]67 

invariable law of morality and equity, which has presented itself 
to my mind at any time whatever. All the scientific details by 
which one forms a theory, are entirely unknown to me, and as 
for the means by which it is forced upon the world, unhappily 
they seem to me so open to doubts, to disputes, to the scruples 
and repugnances of those who charge themselves with their execu- 
tion that I feel quite petrified with scepticism, even when I merely 
cast my eyes upon them, and see in what they consist. This 
is not my forte. By nature I am poetical and not legislative, 
warlike if need be, but not parliamentary . I might be employed 
in anything, if I was first of all convinced, and then commended ; 
but I am not fitted to discover any thing, or to decide any 
thing. I will accept any thing which is good. Therefore 
ask for my possessions, for my life, oh, Roman ! but leave 
my poor spirit to the sylphs and nymphs of poesy. "What mat- 
ters it r you will find numbers of heads which will deliberate 
more than there is any need. Will it not be allowed to the 
minstrels to sing to the women, while you make laws for the 
men ? 

This is the point to which I wish to come, Everard, to say to 
you that all need not be virtuous, only some of us. What is really 
necessary to all, is goodness. Be you virtuous, I will try to be 
good. Goodness is that instinctive wisdom, that natural mode- 
ration of which I was speaking a short time since, the absence 
of vice, that is to say of fiery passions, so hurtful to society, 
because they tend to monopolize the sources of enjoyment, 
which by the designs of providential nature, ought to be divided 
amongst all men. It is necessary that the governed should be good, 
temperate, honest, moral in fact, that the governments ma$- be 
able to raise a durable edifice upon their firm and submissive 
shoulders. I myself am far from possessing what they call the 
republican virtues, but what I should less pompously call, the 
qualities of the governable individual or the citizen. I have not 
lived wisely, I have made a foolish use of the goods which have 
fallen to my share, I have neglected the works of charity, I have 
passed my days in effeminacy, in ennui, in vain tears, in foolish 
love, in frivolous pleasures. I have bowed down before idols of 
flesh and blood, and I have allowed their intoxicating breath to 



J 68 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

efface the austere maxims which books of wisdom had engraven 
upon my youthful brow. I have permitted their innocent des- 
potism to consecrate my days to puerile amusements, in which 
the memory and love of good were extinguished, for I was once 
good, do you really know it, Everard ? My home friends will 
tell you so : every one knows it well in our parts ; but there was 
little merit in it ; I was young, and fatal passions had not then 
sprung up in my bosom. They have stifled many good qualities, 
but there are some from which I have not deteriorated in the 
least, even in the greatest reverses of my life ; and none of the 
others is irrecoverably lost to me. It is thus I reply to the 
question you asked me the other day : " Is it from want of power, 
or is it from indifference, that you defer becoming good?" 
Neither the one nor the other ; but I have been tempted from 
my route, led prisoner by a passion which I did not mis- 
trust, and which I believed noble and holy. It is so neverthe- 
less, but I doubtless allowed it to acquire either too much or too 
little power over me. My strength in vain revolted against it, 
and a fearful struggle devoured the best years of my life ; all 
this period I remained in a region foreign to my soul, in a land 
of exile and servitude, from whence I have at last escaped, 
bruised, degraded by slavery, and dragging after me the remains 
of the chain which I have broken, and which wounds me afresh 
every time I take a step backwards, to look at shores now distant 
and abandoned. Yes, I have been a slave, pity me, you that are 
a free man, and be not astonished at seeing that now all my 
sighs are for travelling in the free air, the great woods, and 
solitude. Yes, I have been a slave, and I can tell you from 
experience, that slavery brutalizes and degrades a man. It flings 
him into folly and perversity ; it makes him wicked, lying, vin- 
dictive, bitter, even more detestable than the tyrant who op- 
presses him ; this has happened to me, and in the hatred I had 
conceived against myself, I longed for death passionately, every 
day of my subjection. 

I am here nevertheless, and I am here with an arrow broken 
in my heart ; it is my own hand which has broken it, it is my 
own hand which will withdraw it ; for each day, I agitate the 
gharp edged point in my bosom, and each day, making the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 169 

wound bleed afresh, while I enlarge it, I proudly feel that I am 
withdrawing the weapon, and that my soul does not follow it. 

It is not then an incurable, or feeble person who is here 
before you ; it is a wounded prisoner, who has escaped, and 
may yet make a good soldier. Do you not see that I have 
brought no vice out of the land of Egypt, and that I am still 
strong and robust, for the journey through the desert ? Look 
at him to whom you are now addressing yourself : it is no longer 
to an effeminate prodigal, it is no longer to one of those 
young Athenians, with their perfumed tresses, whom Aristo- 
phanes chastised by introducing them into his dramas, and 
whom pointed out both by their name and the finger of scorn, 
he gave up to public censure ; you now speak to a sort of 
ploughboy, with a rush hat on his head, a waggoner's blouse, 
blue stockings, and hob-nailed shoes. This rustic penitent is 
still capable like yourself of temperance, charity, labour, 
constancy, disinterestedness, and simplicity ; besides being 
sincere and chaste, for he abjures his greatest weakness, 
love ? 

Republic ! dawn of justice and equality, divine L^topia, sun 
of a future, perhaps chimerical, hail ! shine forth in heaven, 
oh star which demandest the possession of the earth ! If thou 
descendest to us before the fulfilment of the expected time, 
thou wilt find me ready to receive thee, and already clothed ac- 
cording to thy sumptuary laws. My friends, my masters, my 
brothers, hail to you ! my blood, my bread are yours hence- 
forward, whilst waiting for the republic to claim them. And 
beautiful Switzerland ! mountains, eloquent waters, wild eagles, 
Alpine chamois, crystal lakes, silvery snows, gloomy fir trees, 
hidden pathways, fearful rocks ! it cannot be an evil which 
obliges me to go and throw myself on my knees, weeping, and 
alone, in the midst of your beauties. It cannot be forbidden 
either by virtue, or the republic, to a poor, unhappy and weary 
artist to wander, imprinting your sublime outlines, and beau- 
tiful colouring on his mental vision. You will permit him, oh 
echoes of the solitudes to recount his griefs to you ; soft and 
flower enamelled grass, you will be bed and table to him ; 
limpid streams, you will not flow backward when he ap- 



170 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

proaches ; and thou, oh botany, sacred botany ; my blue cam- 
panulas which flower so tranquilly under the thunder of the 
cataracts ! oh panporcini of Oliero, which I found sleeping 
in your calices in the depths of a grotto, but which an hour 
afterwards, I found awake around me, as though you were 
gazing upon me with your fresh and rosy countenances ! Ah 
my beloved sage of the Tyrol ! oh my solitary hours, the only 
hours in my life, upon which I can look back with delight. 

But thou, idol of my youth, Love, whose temple I abandon for 
ever, adieu ! My knees tremble and my voice falters against 
my will, when I utter this parting phrase. Yet another look, 
yet another offering of a crown of white roses, the spring's first 
roses, and then adieu ! Enough of offerings, enough of vows. 
Insatiable divinity, choose younger and happier Levites 
than I, count me no longer amidst the number of your 
votaries. But whilst quitting thee, it is impossible for me to 
curse thee ; Oh torment, oh delight ; I cannot even reproach 
thee ; I will place at thy feet a funeral urn, emblem of my 
eternal 'mourning. Thy young Levites will overturn it whilst 
dancing round thy statue ; they will break it, and continue to 
love. Reign on Love, reign on, till virtue and the republic clip 
thy wings. 



20th April. 

What are you suffering from ? and why is there so much 
sadness in your soul sometimes ? Why do you say that God 
has withdrawn himself from you ? Why do you ask the weak- 
est and least submissive of your disciples, to come to aid and 
encourage you ? Master, of what have been your dreams this 
night, and why .do your followers, accustomed to receive the 
manna of hope from you, now find you sad and dispirited ? 

Alas ! do you find that it is long in coming, this accom- 
plishment of a great destiny ? The hours pass on, your brow 
grows bald, and humanity does not progress. Your noble de- 
sires strike in vain against the brazen walls of indifference and 
corruption. You see yourself alone, man of goodness alone in 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 171 

the midst of a world of brutes and usurers. Your dispersed 
and persecuted brethren make you hear from afar the dying 
voice of heroism perishing in the hideous arms of avarice and 
luxury. Yet a little longer, and mournful innocence will per- 
haps perish under vice at which men no longer even blush. 
This is what destroys me. When the spirit of enthusiasm is 
awakened in my breast, the contact of humanity, hostile and 
insensible to my dreams, freezes and throws back upon my soul 
its juvenile impulses. Then, seeing that even my indignation 
is ridiculous through its want of power, seeing these gross and 
vulgar men cast glances of bravado and contempt upon my 
feeble arm, and proclaim the right of the strongest whenever 
one speaks to them of equity, I begin to laugh, and say to my 
companions — " Let us clothe ourselves in gold and purple, let 
us drink nectar, let us stifle the last germ of virtue in our 
souls ; since it is fated that virtue must he overcome, let us 
kill ourselves whilst singing on the ruins of her temple." 

But you, my brother, you are not long under the influence 
of this fit of moral cowardice. You soon throw off your lan- 
guor, and soon your strength, numbed by the cold, rouses itself. 
and the aged lion shakes his mane. It would be in vain if 
the'earth fell to dust around you, you would become as marble, 
and like Atlas, bear up the world upon your immovable shoulders. 
Thus the clouds which pass over your noble brow do not dis- 
quiet the men who have rallied around you. They play the 
same game as yourself. What matters your sadness to them,, 
if on the day of action you do not remain in your lair more 
than in ordinary days ? I alone, perhaps, pity you as you 
merit, for I have sounded the depths of your sorrow, and know 
how much bitterness spreads doubt over our most beautiful 
conquests. I know those hours of the night, when one wanders 
alone in the silence, under the cold light of the moon and 
stars which seem to say ; " you are but vanity, grams of dust, 
to-morrow you will be nothing, and we shall take no heed." 

When you are in this state, master, you must fly from 
yourself and come to us. In vain will you struggle against 
the grand voice of the universe ; the eternal stars are always 

at 



172 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

right, and man, however great amongst men, is always seized 
with fear and trembling when he questions that which is above 
him. Oh awful silence, the eloquent and terrible answer of 
eternity ! 

Return to us, seat yourself on the grass of our Sunium pro- 
montory, in the midst of your brethren. Standing, you are too 
far above them and you are alone. Descend, descend, and be 
consoled. There is something yet beyond greatness and 
strength — goodness, the sweetest and most spotless bond among 
men. A tear often? does more good than the victories of 
Spartacus. You have it within you, this treasure of goodness, 
man too rich in greatness. Share it with us, at those hours 
when not forced to gird on the cuirass and the sword ; — forget 
the past and the future for a time. Give the present to friendship. 
Friendship is the only thing of which I cannot doubt. If you 
did but know with what friends heaven has blessed me ! 
You know it, you know them, they are your brethren, but you 
cannot know the extent of their benefits towards me. You 
know not the gulf of despair from which they have rescued 
me a hundred times by their inexhaustible patience, their sub- 
lime mercy, even when I repulsed their saving arms with anger 
and distrust, and even when I cast into their faces my ingratitude 
and my scepticism. 

Blessed be they ! they have made me believe in something ; 
they have given me an anchor of refuge in my shipwreck. 
You may never know, alas ! all the grandeur of friendship. 
You will not need it. What you inspire is admiration, not 
pity. Providence sends this compensation for feeble souls, as it 
sends the beneficent evening breezes to the floweret weary and 
drooping from the heat of the day. But love my friends be- 
cause of what I owe to them, and when you are conquered by 
the angel that wrestled with Jacob, come to seek forgetfulness 
and serenity amongst them. They are gayer than you, they 
have not girded on the hair cloth of virtue. They are good 
and kind, ready to give all for their conviction, but the hour of 
martyrdom will most probably never sound for them. If it 
comes, their martyrdom will be neither long nor difficult to 
suffer, merely time for a last embrace, and then death. What 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 173 

is that ? you, you entered into the agony the day of your birth, 
and the seal of sorrow marked you in your mother's womb. 
Come, we will respect your grief, and will try to alleviate its 
weight 



22nd Apeil. 

You ask me for the history of my friend Neraud ; here it 
is. The Malgache (as I baptised him on account of the long 
recitals and fairy like descriptions he used to give us of the 
isle of Madagascar, on his return from his long voyages,) en- 
listed early under the flag of the republic. You have seen 
him ; — a little dry copper coloured man, rather worse dressed 
than a peasant ; an excellent pedestrian, droll, but rather 
sarcastic, brave from sang-froid, running to every outbreak 
whilst a student, and receiving great sabre cuts on the head 
without ceasing to quiz the gendarmerie in the style of Rabelais, 
for which he has a peculiar predilection. Divided between two 
passions, science and politics, instead of taking his degree at 
Paris, he went alternately from the carbonarist club to the 
school of comparative anatomy, sometimes dreaming of the 
reconstruction of modern society, and then of the limbs of the 
palaaotherium, of which Cuvier had just discovered a fossil 
leg. One morning, passing by one of the flower beds at the 
Jardin des Plantes, he saw an exotic fern, which seemed so 
beautiful to him, in its foliage, and so graceful altogether, that 
it happened to him, as it has often happened to me in my 
life, to fall in love with a plant, and to have neither dream 
nor desire but for it. The laws, the club, and the palgeotherium 
were all forgotten, and sacred botany became his dominant 
passion. One morning, he set off for Africa, and after ex- 
ploring the mountainous isles of the South Seas, "he returned 
quite emaciated, bronzed, and in rags, having supported the 
severest privations and the rudest fatigues ; but rich after his 
own heart, that is to say, furnished with a complete herbal of 
the Madagascan Flora; a strange and magnificent garland 
stolen from the lap of an ebony Goddess , In it was com- 

m 2 



174 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

prised a fortuue, at any rate, a resource. But the lover of science 
laid his conquest at the feet of M. de Jussieu, and thought him- 
self rewarded "beyond his desires when this High Priest of 
Flora, gave the name of Neraudia Melastomefolia to a beautiful 
fern from Maurice Island, hitherto unknown to our botanists. 
It was at this epoch, that seeing the funeral of Lallemant pass 
by, he quitted his botany for his country, as he had quitted his 
country for his botany ; and after having his head cut open by a 
dragoon's sabre, he returned to his family, a merry cripple, 

With broken wing and weary foot, 
Rather lame and scarce alive. 

To keep him amid his penates, his father bethought himself of 
giving him a spot of ground, on a beautiful hill- side, where I 
mean to take you to walk* the first time you come to see us. Our 
Malgache planted exotic trees there, made his Madagascar flowers 
grow in our Berry earth, and built in the midst of his groves, a 
pretty little Indian ajoupa which he filled with his collections 
and books. One morning as I was passing in the ravine at day- 
break, I stopped my horse's gallop in order to admire some 
splendid flowers, which raised themselves majestically over the 
hedges. They were the first dahlias seen in our country and the 
first I had ever seen in my life. I was sixteen, just an age to 
admire flowers ! I got down from my horse to steal one, and 
galloped away. Whether Malgache, concealed in his ajoupa, saw 
my robbery, or whether some indiscreet friend betrayed my 
crime to him, I know not, but soon afterwards he sent me some 
dahlia roots, which I planted in my garden, and from that time 
our acquaintance dates, but not our friendship, we had no op- 
portunity of seeing each other for several years. In the interval 
he had married, and become a father, and had augmented his 
garden by a beautiful orchard, through which he had carried 
the waters of a rivulet. 

It was then, that being both fixed in the country, and our 
acquaintance having commenced under such sympathetic auspices, 
\\o became united by extreme friendship. A kind of gipsy 
journey we made together to the mountains of La Marchc, to 
the beautiful ruins of Crozant, revealed us entirely one to the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 175 

other. Although born in the opposite camp, I had always had a 
republican soul, and I had it the more so then, being younger and 
more given to illusions. He was extremely pleased to find me 
one of those obstinate men upon whom the prejudices of educa- 
tion produce no effects, and he declared to me that there wanted 
nothing more in me to obtain his confidence and entire esteem 
than a little knowledge of botany. I promised him to study 
it, and with his help, I got on so far, as not to know thoroughly, 
but to comprehend all the mysteries of the vegetable kingdom, 
and to be able to listen to him, as much as he pleased to talk. 
I never knew a man so agreeably learned, or so poetical, so clear, 
so picturesque, so engaging in his lessons. My tutor had made 
an insupportable pedant of nature to me ; but Malgache turned 
her into an adorable mistress. We stripped off without pity, 
her motley dress of Greek and Latin, through which I had 
always trembled at her sight. He displayed her to me naked 
and beautiful as Rhea. He spoke to me of the stars, of 
the sea, of the mineral kingdom, of the animated productions of 
nature, bat above all of insects for which he had then con- 
ceived a passion almost as lively as that for flowers. We passed 
our time hunting the lovely butterflies which hover over our 
meadows, whilst their variegated wings w r ere still heavy with the 
morning dew. At noon we surprised the emerald and sapphire 
beetles which slumber in the glowing calices of the roses. In 
the evening when the sphinx with ruby eyes buzzes round the 
enotheras, intoxicating itself with their perfume of vanilla, we 
lay in ambush to seize upon the agile though unwary sipper of 
ambrosia. Nothing suggests the idea of a disguised sylph, on 
a wooing expedition, like a large sphinx with its long body, its 
bird-like wings, its intelligent face, its flexible antennae, and 
its fantastic eyes. Sombre and mysterious colours, marked 
with magic and undecypherable characters are imprinted upon 
the two wings which lie folded on its back. Pale red, brown, 
grey and pale yellow are mingled under the cabalistic black 
and white, along and across; triangles, crescents, arrows are 
scattered all over it. But just in the same manner as one 
sees the owl and the osprey conceal their brilliant down under 
the breast, so when the sphinx opens its velvet mantle the 



176 LETTERS OF A TRAVLELER. 

under wings are seen forming a tunic sometimes of a tender 
green, and sometimes of a soft rose colour with azure rings. I 
wager, unhappy man as you are, that you have never even seen a 
spotted sphinx ; and nevertheless, our vines give birth to them 
and these marvels of creation always seem to me too beautiful not 
to be animated by the spirits of the air and the night. Ah ! it is 
for want of knowing all this, miserable men, that you keep your 
contemplations invariably fixed upon the human race. It was not 
thus with my Malgache. Sometimes even he would let his evening 
paper remain in its blue envelope till the next morning, whilst he 
harried to prepare his flowers for the herbal, and his insects for 
their little stands of elder pith. What beautiful walks we took in 
autumn along the banks of the Indre, through the humid meadows 
of the Black Valley ! I remember one autumn was consecrated 
to the study of mushrooms, another autumn did not suffice for the 
study of mosses and lichens. Our baggage consisted of a magnify- 
ing glass, a book, a tin box for receiving and preserving the plants 
fresh, and in addition to all this, my son, a beautiful child of four 
years old, who would not be separated from us, and who acquired 
and still retains a passion for natural history. As he could not walk 
far at a time, we exchanged the load of the box and child alternately. 
We passed over many leagues in the fields after this grotesque 
fashion, but we were as attentively and conscienciously occupied, 
as you may be in the silence of your study, whilst I am giving 
you this account of the happiest years of my life. 

The nightingale sent forth such a lovely burst of melody, that 
I left both you and Malgache, to go and listen to it in the garden. 
It is a singularly melancholy night, a grey heaven, the stars are 
pale and veil their faces, not a breath amongst the plants, and 
an impenetrable obscurity over the earth. The lofty pines raise 
their vague and gloomy masses into the dusky atmosphere. Na- 
ture is not beautiful in this mood, but she is solemn and appeals 
to one of our senses, the one to which the nightingale speaks so 
eloquently when it meets a being created for it. All is silence, 
mystery, darkness, not a frog in the marshes, not an insect in the 
grass, not a dog baying, even the murmuring of the river does not 
reach us ; the wind blows from the south and carries it across 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 177 

the valley. It seems as though all were silent to listen and receive 
the sounds, burning with desire, and palpitating with joy which 
the nightingale is sending forth. " Oh minstrel of happy nights !" 
as Obermann calls it. Happy nights for those who love and 
are together ; dangerous nights for those who have not yet 
loved ; and nights profoundly sad for those who love no longer. 
Return to your books, ye who wish henceforward to exist only 
through thought, it is not good for you to be here. The perfume of 
the fresh flowers, the odour of the rising sap, ferment with too much 
violence ; an atmosphere of forgetfulness and fever seems to 
weigh over us ; and sentiment exhales from every atom of crea- 
tion. Let us fly ! the spirit of fatal passions is abroad in this 
darkness, and intoxicating vapours. Oh God ! it is not long since 
I loved too ! and such a night would have been delicious. . . « Everv 
sigh of the nightingale sends an electric emotion through my 
breast ! Oh God ! my God ! I am still so young ! 

Pardon, pardon, my friend and brother ! at this hour you are 
watching the stars, you inhale the warm air, and you are thinking 
of me in the calm of your holy friendship ; but I have not been 
thinking of you, Everard ! I felt tears on my cheeks, and it was 
neither the power of your eloquent words, nor the emotion of a 
tragic or glorious history which made them flow ; but it was a 
faint glimmer which passed over the horizon, a vague phantom 
floating over the heath. All is over : the spirit of the meteor has 
no longer any power over me, its fugitive ray may send a shudder 
through my frame, as to a traveller all armed against the terrors 
of the night, but from these heights, from which our warnings 
come, your austere voice is calling and reproving me. Sublime 
fanatic, I follow you : fear not for me the enchantments and snares, 
which the enemy is plotting in the darkness. My guardian saint 
is the celestial warrior who treads the dragon under his horse's 
feet. It is God who guides thy arm, sacred pride winch makes 
thy steps invulnerable : oh George the blessed ! Friend, my 
patron saint is a great warrior, a hardy knight, I hope he will aid 
me to conquer my passions, those fatal dragons, which endeavour 
still to plant their claws in my heart and tear it from its eternal 
welfare. 

I return to thee, mv friend. Do not be anxious about the 



178 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

recurrence of an emotion which you no longer know. A day may 
also come for me, perhaps soon, when my serenity will be no longer 
troubled, and nature will be for me only an august temple where 
I may always prostrate myself to pray and utter praise. Behold 
a faint wind is rising, and sweeping away the mists. A star is 
showing forth its brilliant face, like a diamond on the summit of 
the tallest tree in the garden. I am saved. This star is more 
beautiful than all the remembrances of my life, and the most 
ethereal portion of my soul darts forth towards it, away from the 
earth and me. Everard, is this your planet or mine ? Are you 
now addressing it ?. . . . I return to the history of my Malgache. . . . 
that is, I will return to it to-morrow ; I am tired, and shall sleep 
with that childlike sleep which I have recovered in the fold, like a 
guardian angel at my couch. I send you a flower from my gar- 
den. Good night, and the peace of the angels be with you, con- 
fessor of God and of truth. 



23rd April. 

I return to the history of my Malgache. . . . But I perceive that 
it is finished, for I do not reckon amongst the facts of his life a 
little love affair, which nearly made him very unhappy, and which, 
thank God, confined itself to a sentimental and platonic episode. 
However, here is the episode. 

A lady in our neighbourhood, to whom from time to time he 
sent a bouquet, a butterfly, or a shell, inspired him with a sincere 
friendship, which she frankly returned. But a mania for playing 
on words made him give the name of love to what was nothing 
but a fraternal affection. The lady, who was our mutual friend, was 
neither angry nor proud of it. She was of a calm and affectionate 
disposition, loving a little elsewhere, and not concealing it from 
him. She continued to philosophize with him, to receive his but- 
terflies, his bouquets, and billets, in which now and then a little 
verse made its appearance. 

The discovery of one of these billet-doux brought on stormy 
quarrels between Malgache and another person, who had more 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 179 

legitimate rights upon the lady, in the midst of which the fancy 
struck him of leaving the country and turning a Moravian 
brother. Behold him then" again, en route, with his tin case, on 
foot, a little in love, and unhappy on account of the sorrow he had 
caused, but supporting himself through all with jests, which he 
scatters like a shower of blossoms over the arid pathways of his 
life., and which he addresses to the natives or to the mules or 
even the stones in the road, for want of a more intelligent audi- 
tory. He stopped at the rocks of Vaucluse, determined to live 
and die on the borders of that fountain where Petrarch went to 
evoke the image of Laura in its waters. I did not feel very anxious 
about this unlucky resolution, I knew my Malgache too well to 
believe his grief irreparable. Whilst there are flowers and insects 
on this earth, Cupid will only waste his arrows upon him. Pre- 
cisely as the month of March covered the banks of the rivulet and 
the rocks of Vaucluse with the greenest water-plants and the 
freshest cresses, Malgache abandoned the part of Cardenio, made 
a beautiful collection of the aquatic mosses, and wrote to me, 
about the end of April, saying : u All this is very fine, but if my 
cruel love imagines that I am going to stop here, till she thinks 
proper to crown my constancy, she is mistaken. Tell her to give 
over weeping for my decease, I am still alive and cheerful, my 
herbal is finished, my shoes worn out, and during all this time my 
orchard is budding without me. I am not disposed to have my 
grafts done by some bungler. Pray interpose and do not let 
any one touch them, I only ask the time to have my pruning-knife 
reground, and I am with you." 

The unfortunate fellow returned, and resigned himself to being 
adored by his family, purely loved by his Dulcinea, and cherished 
by me, his brother and pupil. He built himself a pretty little 
pavilion on the hillside, above his garden, his meadow, his orchard, 
and his rivulet. Soon afterwards he became the father of a second 
child. His son was named Olivier,* wishing also to give the 
name of a plant to his daughter, and knowing none more estimable 
and agreeable than the rose-coloured fever-few, which grows in 
our meadows, he wished to call her Petite Centauree ;f and it was 
* Oliver. + Small Centaury. 



180 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

with some trouble that his family made him give up the strange 
name. 

The first visit he paid to the lady of his thoughts, after his Vau- 
cluse expedition, cost him something ; he feared she might be 
piqued at finding him so soon consoled and returned. But she 
ran to meet him laughing, and kissed him on both cheeks. He 
entered her room, and saw that she had kept very carefully all the 
dried flowers and butterflies, which he had given her in former times. 
Besides this, she had put under glass a piece of Madagascar crystal, 
a fragment of basalt from the mountain called Pouce, (the one to 
which Paul went every evening to watch for the sail which was, 
he hoped, to bring Virginia back to him,) and a wasp's nest, in 
shape like a rose,which was beginning to crumble to pieces. A 
great tear rolled down the bronze cheek of our Malgache, which 
drowned love, but friendship survived, calm and purified. 

At present, Malgache, almost like a mummy in appearance, but 
more alert and active than ever, passes his peaceful days in the 
depths of his orchard. He has been a justice of the peace for 
some time, but soon disgusted, as he said, with the cares which gran- 
deur draws in its train, he gave in his resignation, and will no 
longer take in any letters which are not addressed to Monsieur 
***** Nurseryman. As he has studied very much in his retreat, 
he has learned very much, and is now one of the most accom- 
plished savans in France, but no one knows this, not even him- 
self. A little melancholy now and then casts a shadow over his 
brilliant gaity, especially if frost comes in April, when the apricots 
are in flower ; and besides this, Malgache has at once a great good 
quality, and a great defect ; he is what our citizens call a " hare- 
brain ," that means he is a republican, that he does not consider 
the present state of society just or generous, and that it makes 
him suffer not to be able to give air, sunshine, and bread, to all 
who are in want of them. He consoles himself with a few 
sympathetic souls, who suffer and pray with him, but when he re- 
enters his solitude, he is profoundly sad, and writes to me : " Oh, 
my God ! are we really Utopians, and must we die leaving the 
world as it is, without any hope of its amelioration ? But never 
mind this, let us speak and act as though we did hope for a better 
future, shall we not, old friend ?" 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. ■ 181 

Then he takes his blouse and his spade, to chase away dis- 
couragement, and when he has laboured all the day, he is philoso- 
phically humble and calm in the evening. He writes to me then 
with the ink of "joy and contentment.'" What he calls by this 
name is the juice of American grapes, which he expresses into a 
shell, and wbich produces a fine red colour, unluckily subject to 
fade like all other joys. Here is his last note : — 

u I have remarked in myself that the best treatment for all 
moral maladies is the exercise of the body. Ah ! how much ennui 
I have rolled away. My terraces are quite smoothed with it ! I 
do not advise you to become a roller of terraces, but adapt your 
occupations to your strength. I have just finished my new study. 
It is another sort of ajoupa, which I have constructed with trunks 
of trees, filled up with birch twigs. A sheet of zinc six feet long 
for a roof, enables me to brave the storms in it. This charming 
little building is on a little island, where I have transplanted my 
flowers and vegetables. It is surrounded by my orchard, whose 
trees are now in full vigour and beauty. Except an attack now 
and then of misanthropy, I enjoy in this place many peaceful 
hours. I regret the past but little, I have not made a good use 
of it, but I believe now I could not have done any better, it was 
not my nature. 1 am not sorry to grow old ; every age has its 
enjoyments, I look for none now but tranquil pleasures. Your 
friendship above all. Good night.' ' 

Besides the sympathies which unite him and me, and of which 
the principal one is the love at once so immense and so minute of 
nature, which renders us both tedious and insupportable, (except 
to each other) we have both a defect in common, which often 
causes us to feel ourselves tete-a-tete even in the midst of our 
friends. I do not know what to call it, it is like a natural timidity, 
a speciality belonging to a certain degree of enthusiasm, like a 
false shame which makes us afraid to say aloud even what we feel 
most deeply, an absolute impossibility of manifesting ourselves, by 
words, then and there where we ought to be most able to do it. 
In fact, it is exactly the contrary of the quality you so eminently 
profess, and which constitutes your power over men, eloquence 
and conviction. Both he, who is sparkling with intellect in all 



182 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

other respects, and I, whose tongue is nimble enough sometimes, 
as you have seen when it was influenced by vexation or indignation, 
are too stupid to give any pleasure when we ought to be able to 
rise beyond ourselves. Our comrades conclude that we are worn 
out, he, by the habit of jesting, I, by the habit of doubting. For 
him, I declare to you that his heart is as fervent, young, and brave, 
as at twenty years of age. No man has ever laboured more 
industriously to assure himself a modest independence, after his 
own taste, and yet no one thinks less of life itself. He said to 
me the other day, "I would go, and I will go. I am not luxurious, 
what matters it to me whether I sleep upon a mat, on the pave- 
ment, or in a coffin ? M 

As for myself, perhaps !. . . . I do not know. You thought 
you had discovered a great secret in me the other day, whilst you 
were reading the account of the death of your brethren. I was 
uneasy all dinner time, because my petrifying silence, beside the 
enthusiasm of that Gaul, made me blush before you. But that 
tear you surprised, and which you thought so great an indication 
of internal warmth, know that it was caused by nothing higher 
than a profound and bitter jealousy which I had good reason to 
hide, and which at that moment, made me deeply regret my fate, 
my present inaction, my impotence, and my life passed doing 
nothing. You may love and weep with tenderness over such men, 
Everard, you are one of them ; as for me, I am a poet, that is to 
Bay difemmelette* In a revolution, your aim would be the liberty 
of the human race ; mine would be no higher than to seek death, 
to get rid of myself, and for the first time in my life, to have been 
of some use, were it only to heighten a barracade by the addition 
of one corpse more. 

Bah ! what am I saying ? Do not think me either melancholy, 
or that I care a straw for glory. You know what I have often 
said to you ; I have loved too much, I have done no good thing. 
Has any one a need of my life ? present or future ? — provided that 
it serves an idea, and not a passion, truth, and not a man, I consent 
to receive laws. But alas ! I warn you, I am fit for nothing but 
to receive and blindly obey an order. 

* Womanish little thing. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 183 

I can act, but not deliberate ; for I know nothing and am sure of 
nothing. I can only obey by closing my eyes and shutting my 
ears, that I may see and hear nothing to dissuade me ; I can 
march with my friends, like the dog who sees his master depart in a 
vessel, and throwing himself into the sea, follows him, till he ex- 
pires with fatigue. The sea is great, oh my friends ! and I am 
weak, I am fit for nothing but a soldier, and I am not five feet high ! 

But never care for this, the pygmy is your own. I am yours 
because I love and esteem you. Truth is not amongst men, the 
kingdom of God is not of this world. But as much as man can 
do to snatch from the Divinity a ray of the divine light which illu- 
minates the world from above, you have done, children of Prome- 
theus, lovers of the naked truth and inflexible justice. Let us go 
on, whatever the colour of your banner, provided that your phalanx 
be always found upon the high road of a republican future ; in the 
name of Jesus, who upon the face of the whole earth has now but 
one true apostle, in the names of Washington and Franklin, who 
could not achieve sufficient in their day, and left us a task to accom- 
plish ; in the name of St. Simon, whose sons brave the brunt at 
once by advocating the sublime and terrible aim of a community cf 
goods (may God protect them !....) provided all that is done is 
done in the spirit of good, and that those who believe it prove 

it I am but a poor child in the regiment, but take me with 

you. 



26th April. 

Will you be good enough to tell me what ails you, with all your 
declamations against artists ? Exclajm against them as much as 
you will, but respect art itself. Ah Vandal ! I can respect the 
bigoted sectarian who would put a robe of serge, and wooden shoes 
upon Taglioni, and employ Listz's hands to turn a mill, but who 
nevertheless throws himself upon the ground weeping when the 
Bengali sings, and who makes a disturbance at the theatre to pre- 
vent Othello from killing Malebran ! The austere citizen wishes 
to suppress artists as social superfluities who absorb too much sap, 



184 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

but the same gentleman loves vocal music, and would extend pardon 
to singers. I hope the painters may find amongst you some good 
eye that can comprehend painting and who will not allow studio 
windows to be blocked up. And as to poets, they are your cousins, 
and you neither disdain the forms of their language nor the me- 
chanism of their periods, where you wish- to produce an effect upon 
simpletons. You will go amongst them to learn the use of metaphor 
and how to avail yourselves of it. Resides, the genius of the poet 
is a substance at once so elastic and so manageable ! it is like the 
sheet of white paper, which a conjurer turns alternately into 
a cap, a cock, a boat, a frill, a fan, a barber's bason, and twenty 
other different objects, to the great delight of the spectators. No 
triumphant hero has ever been in want of bards. Flattery is a 
profession like another, and when the poets sing what you wish, 
you will allow them also to sing as they wish, for their pleasure is 
in singing and making themselves heard. 

Oh Dante ! 'tis not thy deep toned muse which could have been 
induced to perjure itself ! 

But tell me why you are so displeased with artists. The 
other day, you imputed all social evils to them ; you called them 
dissolvers, you accused them of weakening the courage, corrupt- 
ing the morals, and enfeebling all the springs of volition. — 
Your declamation remained incomplete, and your accusation 
also, because I could not resist the foolish impulse of disputing 
with you. I should have done better to listen, you would with- 
out doubt have advanced some more serious reason, for this pro- 
position is the only thing ever advanced by you, which has not 
made me reflect deeply afterwards, however antagonistic to me at 
the time. 

Is it art itself you wish to plead against ? Tt laughs at you, at you 
all, and all imaginable systems ! Try to extinguish one of the sun's 
rivvs. But it is not that. If I replied to that, I should have to 
write to you only such novel remarks as these : the flowers smell 
sweetly ; it is very hot in summer : birds have feathers ; asses' ears 
are longer than horses' ears &c. &c. 

If it is not art then which you would destroy, neither can it be art- 
ists. Whilst Jesus is believed in on this earth, there will be priests, 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 185 

and no human power can prevent a man from taking, if he wishes 
it, a vow of humility, chastity and mercy ; and in the same way, 
whilst there are fervent spirits on the earth, the divine lyre of art 
will still be sounded. It appears that here there is a peculiar and 
accidental disgnst taken by the children of young Rome against 
those of ancient Babylon. What has happened ? I do not know. 
The other day one of your set, that is to say one of ours, a 
republican, declared almost seriously, that I deserved death. The 
devil take me, if I know what for ! Nevertheless I am quite proud 
and delighted, as I ought to be, and since that day, I tell my friends 
in confidence, that I am a very important, literary, and political 
personage, giving great umbrage to my own party, because of my 
great social and intellectual superiority. I see that this rather 
surprises them, but they are so kind that they willingly partake 
my joy. The Malgache has asked for my protection, that he may 
have the honour of being hung at my right, and Planet at my left 
hand. We cannot fail to exchange in such a situation, the most 
charming jests, and most delicious facetiae. But whilst waiting 
for all this, I wish no one to make a jest of it ; and I desire that 
all my friends say of me : " He is too clever, he will not live." 

Let us see, nevertheless, let us examine the affairs of my brother 
artists. As for me, I have no care to defend myself. I should be 
too much afraid of being taken, for the most innocent of men, and 
not getting the honour of martyrdom for my ideas. One moment ! 
you will do me the honour of promulgating the aforesaid ideas 
after my decease, for until now I tell you in secret, there is not 
the shadow of an idea in my books or in my head. The duty of 
your friendship is to prove to those who by chance have read the 
aforesaid books, that which they do prove, and that which they do 
not prove. Perhaps also it would not be utterly useless to teach 
it to myself also, in order that I might show to my judges, by my 
answers, how much depth and perversity there is in my intellect, 
and how urgent it is that such a meteor, capable of setting the 
world on fire, should be extinguished. 

This granted, (and do not go and contradict me, and take it 
into your head to plead for my innocence ; God bless the obliging 
people ! I am much obliged by their good will, and beg them to 



186 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

allow me to be hung in peace,) let us speak of the others. What 
have they done ? poor devils ? are they capable even of causing 
the death of a fly ? You must know that only Byron and I. . . . 

But I tire you with my incorrigible and stupid jesting. Shake 
hands with me, and I am again serious. 

I am quite ready to confess that we are great sophists. Sophistry 
has invaded everything, even the opera dancer's legs, and Berlioz 
has adapted it to a romantic symphony. Unluckily for the cause 
of ancient wisdom, when you hear the funeral march of Berlioz, 
there will be a nervous shuddering in your lion's heart, and you will 
commence roaring, as you did at Dcsdemona's death, which will 
be very disagreeable for me as your" companion, who pique my- 
self upon showing a pretty cravat, and grave and modest manners 
at the Conservatoire. The least which can happen to you, will be 
to own that this music is rather better than they gave us at Sparta, 
when we served under Lycurgus, and when you thought that 
Apollo, discontented at having seen us devote ourselves exclusively 
to Pallas, had played us the evil trick of giving some lessons to that 
Babylonian, in order that he might bewilder our spirits, and exer- 
cise over us a magical and fatal power. 

You will ask me if this is talking seriously. I speak seri- 
ously, Berlioz is a great composer, a man of genius, a true artist ; 
and since his name has come up, I am not sorry to let you know 
that he is a true artist, for you seem not in the least aware of it. 
The other day you named to me pretended artists, whom you 
loaded with your anger, a currier, a seller of rabbits' skins, a peer 
of France, an apothecary. You have named others to me, cele- 
brated ones, you said, whose names I had never heard. I see 
that you think the moon is made of green cheese, you take grocers 
for artists, and our garrets for satrapies. 

Berlioz is an artist ; he is very poor, very proud, and very brave. 
Perhaps he has the wickedness to think in secret, that all the 
people in the universe are not worth a chromatic scale rightly 
placed ; like myself, who have the insolence to prefer a white 
hyacinth to the crown of France. But you may be sure, that it 
is quite possible to have such follies as these in one's head, and 
not to be an enemy to the human race. You are all for sumptuary 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 167 

Paws, Berlioz for triple crotchets, I am for the lily tribe. Every 
man to his taste. When it is time to build the new city of in- 
telligence, be sure that each will help according to his strength : 
Berlioz with a pick-axe, I with a tooth-pick, and the others with 
their arms, and their vigour. But our young Jerusalem will have 
its days of peace and happiness, I suppose, and then some will 
he allowed to return to their piano, the others to their flower-beds, 
and all be allowed to amuse themselves innocently, according to 
their taste and faculties. What are you doing, can you tell me, 
when watching the constellations at midnight, theorizing with us, 
and speaking of the unknown and of infinity ? If I were to in- 
terrupt you at the very moment, when you are uttering sublime 
words to address such brutal questions as these to you, " Of 
what use is all this ? Why trouble and weary the brain in these 
conjectures ? does this furnish bread and shoes to mankind ?" You 
would reply to me ; this produces holy emotions, and mysterious 
enthusiasm in those who labour in the sweat of their brow for 
mankind ; this teaches them to hope, to dream of the ' divinity, to 
take courage, to raise themselves above the disgusts and miseries 
of our human condition by the thought of a future, chimerical 
perhaps, but strengthening and sublime. What else has made you 
what you are, Everard ? but this fancy for evening reverie ? What 
has given you until now the courage to live in labour and in grief ? 
'tis enthusiasm. And is it you, the most candid and dehghtfully 
rustic of all men of genius, who would declare war against the 
Levites of your God ? Saul, thou wouldst kill David, because 
the sounds of his harp bereave thee of thy senses, whilst listening 
to their tone. On your knees, Sicambre, on your knees, we 
will force you on your knees ! Alas ! T say we ! I think of my 
cause, and I am already persuading myself that I am judged and 
condemned as an artist. They would admit you, though, these 
true artists. If you did but know what these men really are, 
when they follow their gospel, and respect the sanctity of their 
apostle ship i There are but few of these it is true, and I must 
avow it, I am not of them, I avow it to my shame ! Embarked 
on a fatal destiny, having neither cupidity nor extravagant wants, 
but a prey to unforeseen reverses, charged with the care of pre- 



188 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

cious beings, of whom I was the only support, I have not been an 
artist, although I have had all the fatigues, all the ardour, all the 
zeal, and all the sufferings attached to that sacred profession ; true 
glory has not crowned my labours, because I so rarely have been 
able to follow my inspiration. Hurried, obliged to gain money, 
I have forced my imagination to produce, without always waiting 
for the concurrence of my reason ; when my muse yielded not of 
her own free will, I have constrained her ; and she has revenged 
herself by cold caresses, and gloomy revelations. Instead 
of coming towards me, crowned and smiling, she has come 
pale, embittered, and indignant. Her dictation has produced weak 
and bilious effusions, and has taken a pleasure in freezing all the 
generous impulses of my soul, with doubt and despair. It is want 
of bread which made me ill ; it is the grief of being obliged to 
commit a moral suicide, that has made me sarcastic and sceptical, 
I related to you, one evening, the analysis of a beautiful drama 
upon the poet Chatterton, lately acted at the Theatre Francois. 
People in easy circumstances, men well to do in the world, have 
for the most part found it very bad taste, that a poet should make 
a disturbance about his position, and complain bitterly of being 
forced by necessity to derogate from it. Eor my own part, I shed 
many tears, whilst witnessing this struggle of an independent 
spirit with a fatal necessity, which recalled to me so many tortures 
and sacrifices. Pride is as touchy and irritable as genius. Doing 
my very best, I should perhaps have achieved nothing passable ; 
but when an artist sits down to his desk, he has faith in himself 
or he would not sit there ; and then, whether he be great, mediocre, 
or a nonentity, he endeavours and he hopes. But if his hours 
are counted, if a creditor waits at the door, if a child gone supper- 
less to sleep, recalls him to a sense of his poverty, and the neces- 
sity of finishing before daybreak, I assure you, however small his 
talent may be, he has a great sacrifice to make, and a great hu- 
miliation to suffer in his own estimation. He sees others working 
slowly, with reflection, with love ; he sees them read and re-read 
their pages, correct them, polish them minutely, scatter precious 
gems over them through after- thought, take off the least grain of 
dust, and then lay them aside in order to see them again, and to 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 189 

surpass even perfection ! As for himself, unfortunate as he is, he 
has made, with blow of spade and trow r el, a rough work, unformed, 
energetic sometimes, bat always incomplete, hurried and feverish, 
the ink not being dry upon the manuscript before it must be given 

up, the faults not even corrected ! These little miseries make 

you smile and seem puerile to you. Nevertheless, if you admit, 
that even in great things, man's chief moving power is self-love, 
you must also own that in the smallest things a man must suffer 
in entire abnegation of this self-love. And then there is some- 
thing noble, something holy in that devotion of an artist to his 
art, which consists in doing well, in perfecting at the price of his 
fortune, of his glory, of his life. Faith is always a virtue, fortitude, 
your favourite word, I believe. The artizan prosecutes his work 
to augment his profits, the artist languishes two years in his gar- 
ret, over a work which would make his fortune, but which he will 
not yield whilst it is not completed after his own heart and con- 
science. What matters it to M. Ingres, to be rich or celebrated ? 
for him there is but one suffrage in the world, that of Raphael, 
whose spirit is always standing behind him ! Oh ! devout spirit ! 
And Urhan, who plays Beethoven's music with tears in his eyes ; 
and Baillot, who willingly leaves all the eclat of popularity to 
Paganini, rather than add the least ornament or new invention 
of his own to the old and sacred themes of Sebastian Bach ; 
and Delacroix, the melancholy and conscientious disciple of Ru- 
bens ! And you, ye men of renown and power, when have you 
ever been seen to eclipse yourselves behind another more skilful 
or more ambitious than yourselves, through love of the sacred 
truth ? Some of you I know have loved humanity with an artist's 
love ; and this is the highest eulogium that can be given. 

I might quote you many other living artists, who have a right 
to the respect of all intellectual beings ; but this silence would point 
out all those who proceed otherwise and seek renown and gold at any 
cost, blind Babylonians ! You would accuse me of partiality or 
rivalry, and in vain I should reply to you that I know scarcely any 
of those I have just named to you, and none of those whom I 
have not. I have lived alone always in the midst of the world, in 

n 2 - 



190 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

love, a traveller, or a literary serf, I have seen these pure glories 
beaming from afar, and I have worshipped them. I have never 
had the time either to profit by them or to be jealous of them, for I 
have never had the time to look upon my profession as anything 
better than a trade. And yet, I was not born poor, nor am I 
naturally a sybarite, and 1 might have been able to work and live 
in peace. Those to whom I have devoted my life, consecrated 
my hours of watching, sacrificed my youth, and perhaps, my fu- 
ture, will they ever be grateful to me for it ? No, and it matters 
little. 

29th April. 
You tell me I am an imbecile, be it so. Your letters, it is full 
time I should tell you, produce a magical effect upon me. They 
make me serious. What miracle is this ? I may try my best, I 
cannot speak lightly of you as I do of all others, and they have 
now found a method of silencing me when I wound them by my 
railleries. They speak to me of .you, they repeat the words they 
have heard you say, they remind me of (as though 1 had forgotten 
it), that last night passed in re-conducting each other to our re- 
spective dwellings, up to the number of nine times, and that 
pause at the church where we spoke of the dead, and the silence 
into which we sank at the foot of the palace staircase, beneath 
that pale lamp, above that quiet and deserted square, where you 
had just evoked such a fantastic tableau. I regretted at that 
moment, whilst looking at you, that I was not susceptible of the 
feeling of fear for any living being ; otherwise you would have 
caused me one of those lively emotions of terror one feels in 
dreams, which are not without their charm. I shall long remem- 
ber your words whilst descending that great Gothic staircase in 
the moonlight. You said to me, " I love you as Jesus loved John, 
his youngest and most romantic disciple ; and nevertheless, did it 
become a duty for me to kill you, I would tear you from my 
heart, and strangle you with my own hands." Faith, my dear 
master, I wish I were anything better than a poor [cock-chafer, 
just to see if you really possess all this courage and this virtue ! 
"Hut, bah ! you would not do it, charlatan that you are ! But who 
knows ? You, who never laugh — perhaps you would, and I would 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 1S1 

give my head with the greatest pleasure, for the sake of seeing 
one true Roman. 

On my word of honour, there are some moments when I ima- 
gine that I have found virtue taking refuge and concealing herself 
with you, as in the times when men forced her to go and fortify 
herself in wild caverns, and inaccessible rocks. But suppose you 
are but a fanatic after all ! Bah, it is always so ; One is not a 
fanatic by merely wishing to be one, especially at the present time, 
and I should be rather prouder of myself than I have any reason 
to be at present, if I were only a little mad after your fashion. 
We, who are always laughing, now and then resemble those idiots 
who laugh when they see sensible people acting naturally. The 
other day, a peasant, one of my friends (I hope I am speaking in 
the true republican style), entered my study, and seeing me much 
occupied in writing, shrugged his shoulders with a great show of 
pity. He leaned over me, looking at what I was doing, much in 
the manner as though he had paid to see the tricks of a monkey 
at the fair. He took up a book from my table, God forgive me { 
it was a volume of the divine Plato, and he opened it the wrong 
way up, turning over the leaves very attentively, then he replaced 
it on the table, saying to me in a tone of profound contempt, " So 
it is in these trifles then, my good sir, that you pass your time, 
Sundays and holidays, and all ? What droll people there are in the 
world !" And he shook his head and burst out laughing, and I 
had really need of all my democratic philanthropy, not to turn 
him out of the room by the shoulders. 

However, I calmed myself by remembering that I had been a hun- 
dred times in this peasant's case, with you and your followers, and 
I am astonished at the patience with which you supported the im- 
pertinent and stupid raillery of do nothings like ourselves, who are 
good for nothing but criticizing that which they do not understand, 
and are not capable of executing themselves. But I will say as 
Planet does : " Why do not you tell me to walk off, with myself?" 
What do you want with me amongst you old Christians ? May God 
punish me if you are not angels ; nothing stops you, nothing shakes 
your progress ; you approach us with tenderness, and behold you 
address me as your young brother, and your dear child, I who 



192 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

ought to be sent back to my pipe and my romances. Oh, prose- 
lytism, let those make distinctions who like ; it little matters to me 
what name they give thee, provided I see lessons of virtue and 
acts of charity emanating from thy influence. 

But, however, I must confide my trouble to you, my poor mis- 
understood prophet ! They are trying to infuse suspicion into the 
minds of your children against you. Party spirit knows no scru- 
ples. They tell us you are proud, ambitious, an intermeddler, that 
you should be sent to a lunatic asylum, and all of us who love 
you, should be shut up there with you. 

All this would be merely laughable, if men of good feeling and 
intellect were not mixed up with it, through their reliance upon 
others' opinions, and if they did not show, by their silence, that they 
distrust both you and us. That does not dispirit those cham- 
pions who are accustomed to storms, but for myself, just returned 
from Babylon, where I have slept five years in intoxication, and who 
fall, whilst still rubbing my eyes, into the very midst of our youth- 
ful Sion, I feel quite saddened and cast down to see the barrier of 
brass, which the apathy or indifference of the Gentiles has erected 
around us. Shall we ever get free from it, Master ? I see that 
we make a brave and valiant sortie from time to time, but the best 
of our brethren fall in the combat, and when we re-enter our 
tents, clamour, maledictions and hissing, from the victors, follow 
us and interrupt our prayers. What vexes me the most, myself, 
is the hissing. I know these Gentiles well, I have been in cap- 
tivity amongst them. I know how malicious they are, and what 
sharp arrows their irony can dart after us. 

Remember, well, that I am no proved servant, not I ; already I 
can hear their sneers assailing me, for the strange figure I cut as a 
soldier of the republic ; I beg you, my dear master, let me go to 
Stambol — I really have business there. I must go through 
Geneva, that I may buy an ass to traverse the mountains and 
carry my baggage, and I must go through the Black Forest to 
find a plant, which Malgache wishes me to bring back for him. 
At Corfu, I have a Mahometan friend, who begged me to go and 
take sherbet with him in his garden. Dutheil has given me a 
commission to buy him a pipe at Alexandria, and his wife has 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 1.93 

begged me to step as far as Aleppo, to buy her a shawl and a 
fan. You see I cannot delay, I have indispensable duties and 
occupations. 

Listen ; if the republic is proclaimed during my absence, take 
everything, make yourselves at home, I have estates, give them 
amongst those who have none ; I have a garden, pasture your 
horses there ; I have a mansion, make it into a hospital for your 
wounded ; I have wine, drink it ; I have tobacco, smoke it ; I 
have my works in print, make wadding of them for your guns. 
In all my patrimony there are but two things, the loss of which 
would be painful to me — the portrait of my grandmother, and six 
square feet of turf planted with rose and cypress trees ; it is there 
she sleeps by my father's side. I consign this picture and this 
tomb, to the protection of the republic, and on my return, I ask 
that I may be thus indemnified for my losses ; to wit, that I may 
have a pipe, and pen and ink, by which means I will gain my 
living, joyously, and will pass the rest of my life in declaring that 
you have done welL 

If I never return, this is my last will and testament : I leave my 
son to my friends, my daughter to their wives and sisters, the 
tomb and the picture, the inheritance of my children, to you, the 
chief of our Aquitaine republic, to be their temporary guardian ; my 
books, minerals, herbals, and butterflies, to Malgache ; all my 
pipes to Rollinat. My debts, if I have any, to Fleury, to make 
him industrious ; my blessing and my last calembour, to those who 
have made me unhappy, that they may be consoled and for- 
get me. 

I name you my executor ! so adieu, and I will set off. 

Adieu, my children ! until now I have been more of a child than 
yourselves. I go alone on my pilgrimage, in order to grow old 
quickly and repair lost time. Adieu, my friends > my beloved 
brethren ; when sitting round the fire, speak sometimes of one 
who owes to you, the happiest days and dearest remembrances of 
life ; and you, my master, adieu ; and God bless you, for having 
forced me to look a great enthusiast in the face without laughter ; 
and for having made me bend the knee when departing from his 
presence. 



194 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

Oh, Bohemia ! the fantastic home of souls without ambition and 
without fetters, I shall then see thee once more ! Often have I wan- 
dered in thy mountains and over thy fir-trees, I remember it well, 
although then I was not born amongst men, and it has been my 
misery not to be able to forget thee during my sojourn here. 



LETTER VII. 
TO FRANZ LISZT. 



Not knowing where you are at present, my dear Franz, and not 
knowing much better where I am going myself, I send you some 
news of me through our obliging friend, M. . . . I think he will 
iind out your retreat before I can, as I shall be confined in mine 
for some days to come yet. 

I need not tell you the regret I feel at not being able to join 
you. I see your mother is setting off, and Puzzi with his family. 
I suppose you are going to found a colony of artists in the ver- 
dant Bohemia, or beautiful Switzerland. Happy friends ; the 
art to which you have given yourselves up is a noble and 
happy vocation, and mine is but arid and vexatious labour after 
yours. Silence and solitude are absolutely necessary for my work, 
whilst a musician exists in harmony, sympathy, and union, with 
his pupils and his performers. Music can teach and reveal itself, 
can spread and communicate its own beauty. Does not the har- 
mony of sounds induce that of will and feeling ? What a grand 
republic might be formed by a hundred instrumentalists all united 
by the same spirit of loye and order, to execute the symphony of a 
great master ! When the spirit of Beethoven hovers over this sacred 
band, what fervent prayers rise towards God ! 

Yes, music is prayer, is faith, is friendship, is association, par 
excellence. " Where two or three of you are gathered together in 
my name," said Christ to his apostles when quitting them, "there 
am I also amongst you." The apostles, condemned to travel, to 
labour, and to suffer, were soon dispersed. But whenever be- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 195 

tween the prison and the martyrs' pile, between the fetters of 
Caiaphas and the stones of the synagogue, they met each other, 
they knelt down by the way side in some olive wood, or in the 
suburbs of some tcwn, or in a high chamber, and spoke about 
their master and friend Jesus, of the brother and the God, to 
whose worship they had devoted their life ; and then when each 
had spoken in his turn, the wish for all to join at the same time 
in invoking the manes of the well beloved, would doubtless inspire 
them with the wish to sing, and doubtless, the Holy Spirit who 
came down upon them in tongues of fire, and taught them un- 
known things, would also bestow upon them the gift of that sacred 
language which belongs only to select organizations. Oh ! be 
sure of this, if beings do exist before God of a nature sufficiently 
exalted to acquire new faculties suddenly, if their intelligence ex- 
panded, their tongues were loosened, then divine melodies must 
have flowed from their lips, and men have listened with ravished 
ears to a divine harmony. 

There is one fact in the history of human nature, before which 
I cannot cease to prostrate myself, whenever I think of it, and 
that is, the retreat of the twelve for forty days ; this fervent union 
and spotless purity of twelve faithful and devoted spirits for so 
long a time ! Even if I doubted the miracles which were its result, 
I would not say so, would you ? If it were proved to me, that 
these men were only very clever physicians and chemists for their 
day, I would reply that- such a thought takes away nothing from 
the reality of a divine man, and from the existence of a race of 
saints, powerful enough to walk upon the waters and resuscitate 
the dead. What is truly incontestable for me is, the miraculous 
powers of faith in man. Therefore if it could be proved to me 
that the apostles were obliged to have recourse to the prestige of 
what was then styled magic, I should think that they also had 
days of doubt and suffering when their celestial power was weak- 
ened within them. Let us find amongst ourselves, I would reply, 
twelve men superior to the apostles by the firmness of their faith 
and the sanctity of their life, twelve men who could pass forty 
days under the same roof, without disputing and domineering one 
over the other, unanimously occupied in prayer, in asking from 



196 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

God the knowledge of truth and the strength of virtue, without 
faltering, without pride, without yielding to weariness of spirit or 
the presumptuous inspirations of the flesh, and doubt not, Oh ! 
my friends, but that miracles would be worked, that we should 
learn new sciences, unknown powers, and a universal religion. 
Man again made divine, on a beautiful spring dawn, would issue 
from such an assembly, with the sacred lire upon his brow, the 
secrets of life and death in his hand, with the power of drawing- 
tears of charity from the entrails of a rock, with the revelation of 
all tongues spoken by nations as yet unknown to us ; but above 
all with the gift of the divine language brought to its perfection ; 
music, I would say, carried to its highest degree of eloquence and 
persuasion. For, when the prodigy of the descent of the Holy 
Spirit was accomplished amongst the disciples of Jesus, the heavens 
opened above them, and they must have heard and retained con- 
fusedly the hymns of the ardent seraphim and the golden harps of 
those old and crowned men, who appeared in later days to John 
the Apocalypt, and whose divine harmonies he must also have 
heard, mingling some night in the stormy winds blowing over the 
shores of his desert isle. 

Oh, you, who in the silence of night, discover these sacred 
mysteries ; you my dear Franz, you whose hearing is quickened 
by the spirit of the Most High, that you may hear the heavenly 
harmonies from afar, and transmit them to us, feeble and for- 
saken ; how blessed are you to be able to unite in prayer during 
the day with hearts that understand you ! Your vocation condemns 
you not, as mine does, to solitude ; your fervour is rekindled at 
the hearth to which all you love bring their sympathy. Go on, 
pray in the angelic language, and sing the praises of God upon 
your instruments which vibrate to every heavenly breath. 

It is not thus with me, a solitary traveller ! I follow desert routes, 
and seek a shelter in silent walls. I had set off with the intention 
of joining you last month ; but caprice or destiny made me deviate 
from my route, and I stopped to pass the sultry hours of the day 
in one of the towns of our old France, on the banks of the Loire. 
Whilst I was asleep, the steam-boat raised its anchor, and when I 
waked, I saw its black trail of smoke flying rapidly over the silver 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 197 

circle which the river formed in the horizon. I made up my 
mind to go to sleep again till the next day : and the next day, when 
I left my chamber to make enquiries after a boat or a horse, an 
old friend of mine, whom I did not in the least expect to find 
there (having lost sight of him during my years of wandering) was 
standing before me in the court-yard. Whilst he was breakfast- 
ing with me, he told me that he was married and settled in the 
town, but that he usually lived in a country-house in the environs, 
to which he was then going. He had just been hiring a horse at 
the inn, his own being ill or in use, and he wished to carry me 
off in a buggy, to introduce me to his new family. The proposition 
was not much to my taste. It was even more dusty and hot than 
the evening before. I still felt feverish, and the buggy had truly 
most countrified springs ; I am not fond of making new acquaint- 
ances on a journey, and feel very little in the humour to be ex- 
tremely polite, when I am excessively fatigued. I refused decidedly, 
therefore, and told him that I wished to remain at the inn until I 
had recovered from my indisposition. My excellent friend did 
not annoy me with a pitiless hospitality. He consented to leave 
me there, but just at the moment of entering his buggy, it en- 
tered his head to say to me, I have a house in the town, small, 
humble, and in very bad condition, it is true, but perhaps you 
would sleep there more quietly than here. If, notwithstanding, 
the neglect in which it has been left all this spring, owing to my 
having been in the country, you can put up with it. . . . I scarcely 
dare make the offer, it is little in a state to be shown ! Neverthe- 
less, unless you are changed, you are a poet and a friend to soli- 
tude. Perhaps it may please you. Here are the keys ; if you 
leave before I come back to see you, give them to the landlady of 
this inn, who knows me. And speaking thus he embraced and 
left me. 

1 found this a most agreeable invitation. I felt decidedly too un- 
well to continue my journey for two or three days. I procured a 
guide to my friend's house ; it was not a very easy place to reach, 
I was obliged to mount and descend streets, narrow, sultry, and 
badly paved. The deeper we got into the faubourg, the more 
deserted and dilapidated did the streets appear. At last, by a set 



198 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

of broken steps we arrived at a ruinous terrace, upon which there 
was a cluster of very old houses, each with its own court- yard or 
garden, enclosed with high walls covered with creeping plants. I 
had scarcely opened the door of the one destined for my occupa- 
tion, before I w r as delighted at its aspect, and wishing to give 
myself a kind of religious pleasure by entering it alone, I took my 
valise from the guide's hands, threw him his fare, and went in 
hastily, shutting the door in his face, which must have made him 
take me for a fool, a conspirator, or something worse. 

Either one must believe that nature is not intended exclusively 
for man's enjoyment, or that before his dominion extended over 
the whole earth, there w T as really a race of sylvan divinities ; that 
this superhuman race has not entirely withdrawn itself to heaven, 
and that its scattered phalanxes come sometimes to take refuge 
in spots neglected or deserted by man. If this be not so, how can 
one explain the religious respect w^ith which each of us is pene- 
trated when he first sets his foot upon a soil where no other human 
foot has trod. Why does solitude inspire us at the same time with 
both love and terror ? Why do we reverence ruins, unknown 
regions, or untrodden snows ? Why do virgin forests, deserted 
temples, or the simple aspect of loneliness, affect poetical spirits 
so tenderly, or feeble minds so painfully. If we could convince 
ourselves that we were the only living beings left upon the earth, 
we should only be more or less alarmed according to our dispo- 
sition. Nevertheless, has man any subject for rejoicing when he 
has no other society than his own ? Has he not reason to dread 
the absence of aid as much as he has reason to fear attack ? What 
is there then so impressive in the aspect of these unmarked sands, 
these lordless lands, these halls without guests ? Is it not that we 
feel there the existence of unknown beings who have established 
their empire, and who have either the goodness to receive us 
there, or the right to dismiss us ? 

These reflexions passed through my mind whilst leaning against 
the door which I had just closed behind me, and I could not de- 
cide to cross the court yard, for 1 should have been obliged to 
tread down the long grass which was as high as my knees, and 
from winch the sun's rays were beginning to exhale the morning 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 199 

dew. What nymph had overturned her basket there, and scat- 
tered these light seeds, these delicate saxifrages, which were 
blooming in their virgin beauty sheltered from all profanation. 
"Pardon me, oh sylph," said I, "or at least bestow upon me thy 
lightness of step, that I may clear this space, without bending thy 
beloved plants to the earth. "Whoever had watched me, breath- 
less and dusty, leaning in a mournful manner against the door, 
would have taken me either for a man in the depths of despair or 
overwhelmed with remorse ; and yet no traveller w as ever prouder 
of his discovery, nor did ever pilgrim salute the holy land with 
greater reverence. 

The sylph of the place had not disdained the culture of the 
plants which the master of the deserted mansion had confided to 
her. Three Linden trees which divided the court-yard in half, 
a border of larkspurs along the wall, a vine, and immense pyramids 
of mallows, had attained a superb development. When I had 
reached the paved part of my little domain I took care to walk 
upon the disjointed stones without crushing the verdure which 
made itself a way through the cracks ; and thus I reached the 
inner door, this was a fresh embarrassment. Long vine branches had 
interlaced themselves before the entrance ; and formed every where 
leafy curtains over the windows. I was obliged to put an impious 
hand upon them, and raise them like drapery to allow me to open 
a passage over this venerable threshold. But as soon as I had 
stepped over it, the vine branches fell back again with suppleness 
and clung to each other as though to forbid my leaving this 
sacred enclosure. I have not yet disobeyed you, oh flexible and 
complaisant barriers of my beloved prison ! Each night I seat 
myself on the last step of the stair case and watch the moon 
through your silvery garlands. Each star seems set in a frame 
as it passes by the transparent network which you extend between 
us, and sometimes daylight surprises me, as J sit there immove- 
able and dumb as the stone upon which I am seated. 

Yes Franz, I am still here in this deserted house alone, absolutely 
alone, only opening the door to take in an anchorite's dinner, and 
I never remember to have passed days more soothing and more 
pure. It is for me, a great consolation, I can assure you, to see 



200 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

that my soul is not yet so old, as to have lost relish for the en- 
joyments of its early youth. If my hours of meditation are 
no longer filled hy dreams of virtue, and ardent aspirations 
towards heaven, at least I still enjoy calm thoughts and religious 
hopes ; and beyond this, I am no longer devoured as I used to be, 
by the impatience of life. In proportion as I approach declining 
years I estimate more gratefully and justly all that this existence 
produces of generous and providential circumstance. On the 
slope of the hill I look round, and slowly descend, casting a look 
of love and admiration over the beauties of the place I am about 
to quit, and which I did not sufficiently appreciate, when I could 
have reaped its advantages more fully, whilst yet at the summit of 
the mountain. 

But you, who have not yet arrived there, be not too hasty. 
Do not rashly overleap those lofty summits from which one de- 
scends never again to mount. Ah ! your fate is happier than 
mine. Enjoy it, and disdain it not. As a man, you have yet 
the treasure of your best years to come, as an artist you serve a 
more fruitful and charming muse than mine. You are her well- 
beloved, whilst mine begins to find me aged, and condemns me 
now to salutary but melancholy reveries, which would kill your 
precious poetry. Go on, — exist ! the brilliant flowerets of your 
crown need the sunshine ; the bindweed and the hy of which 
mine is formed, emblems of the wild liberty enjoyed by the antique 
sylvans, grow in the shade and amongst ruins. I do not 
complain of my destiny, and I rejoice that Providence has blessed 
you with a happier one ; you deserve it, and if it were mine, 
Franz, I would yield it to you. 

So I have remained at * * * first through compulsion, and 
now from the love of reading and solitude ; later still, I shall per- 
haps remain here from indolence and forgetfulness of the passing . 
hours. But I wish to make you a sharer in a piece of good 
fortune which happened to me here, and which has contributed 
not a little to make me love this retreat. 

You who read a great deal, because you have not the same 
respect for books that I have jand you are right, your art must 
make you disdain ours) you I say, who are quick of comprehen- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 2GI 

sion, and who really devour volumes, you cannot know of what 
importance slow and attentive reading is to an indolent soul like 
mine. Nevertheless I am not one of those who attribute to books 
a very serious moral and political influence. Philosophy above 
all appears to me the most innocent of all poetical speculations, 
and I think it is only souls, exceptional, either through their 
strength or thiough their weakness, who are capable of drawing 
real encouragement or resolution therefrom. All intellect which 
does not seek its light and conviction through the lessons of ex- 
perience and reality, and which allows itself to be governed by 
fiction, is organized exceptionally. If, above the average, it will 
be raised and fortified by good reading; if below, it will find 
great subject for consolation, or perhaps be unhappily affected by 
what it will believe its own condemnation. In both cases, reading 
will have played a very secondary part in these different destinies. 
Their results would have been produced sooner or later if the in- 
dividuals in question had not known how to read. And as to me, 
you know I have a high respect for the illiterate. I humble my- 
self before great legislators and great poets, and yet there are 
days when at the sight of certain souls, so naively, so purely ig- 
norant, I could willingly burn the Alexandrian library itself. 

This taken for granted, I can explain to you why, by reason of 
my own nonchalance and inaptitude for all species of social action, 
I am one of those to whom the knowledge of a book may become 
an actual moral event. The few excellent books I have read 
have developed the few good qualities I possess. I do not know 
what bad books might have done, for I never read any, having 
been so happy as to be well directed in my youth. On this 
point therefore none but sweet and happy memories remain to me. 
A book has always been for me, a friend, a counsellor, an eloquent 
and calm consolation, whose resources I did not wish to dissipate 
quickly, and which I reserved for important occasions. Oh ! which 
of us does not remember with delight the first books winch he de- 
voured and appreciated ? When the cover of some old worm-eaten 
book turns up on the shelves of some forgotten closet, does it not 
bring back the happy pictures of our youthful days. Have you 
not suddenly seen appear before you the large meadow bathed in 



202 LETTERS CF A TRAVELLER. 

the crimson light of evening, where you read it for the first time ; 
the old elm, the hedge which sheltered you, and whose side 
served you at once for couch and table, whilst the thrush sang 
her farewell song to her companions, and the cow-herd's pipe was 
lost in the distance. Oh ! how fast the night darkened over 
these divine pages, and how cruelly did the twilight make the 
characters tremble on the vanishing leaves ! It is over, the 
lambs are bleating, the sheep in the fold, and the cricket takes 
possession of the stubble in the plains. The outlines of the trees 
are lost in the dimness of night, as the characters were effaced 
on the pages of the book. Depart at last one must, the road is 
stony, the weir is narrow and slippery, the hill- side rough, you 
are covered with sweat ; but hurry as you may, you will be too 
late, supper will be begun. In vain does the old servant who 
loves you, delay ringing the bell as long as possible ; you must 
suffer the humiliation of arriving the last, and the grandmother 
so inexorable on points of etiquette even in the depths of her 
estate, will address to you, in a voice at once kind yet sad, a slight 
and very tender reproach, to which you are more sensitive than 
to a heavy punishment. But when at night she asks you for the 
confession of your day's employment, and you have owned, blush- 
ingly, that you have passed it reading in a meadow, and you are 
summoned to produce the book, when after some hesitation and 
fear of seeing it confiscated without having finished it, you draw 
out, trembling, from your pocket, what ? Estelle and Nemorin, or 
Robinson Crusoe! Oh ! then the grandmother smiles. Be tran- 
quil, your treasure will be given back again ; but for the future 
you must not forget the hour of supper. Happy time ! oh ! my 
Black Valley ; oh Corinne ! oh Bernardin de St. Pierre ! the Iliad 
Millevoie ! Atala ! oh willows of the river banks ! oh, my 
vanished youth ! and my old dog to whom the hour of supper 
was not a forgotten thing, and who answered the distant sound of 
the bell by a mournful howl of regret and greediness ! 

Good Heavens ! of what was I talking to you ? I wished to 
speak to you of Lavater, and in fact I am upon the track. In my 
childhood, I had had Lavater's works in my hands. Ursula and I 
had looked at the plates with curiosity. We could scarcely read. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 203 

We asked each other what this collection of droll, insignificant, 
hideous or agreeable visages was for, in the midst of the expla- 
nations and phrases which we could not understand, we sought 
for the principal designation of each face, we found drunkard, 
indolent, greedy, passionate, diplomatic, methodical. . . . Oh, then, 
we understood nothiDg more about it, and we went back to the 
pictures. Nevertheless we remarked that the drunkard resembled 
the coachman, the grumbling evil- speaking woman, the cook, the 
pedant, our preceptor, the man of genius, the effigy of the Empe- 
ror on pieces of money, and we were thoroughly convinced of 
the infallibility of Lavater. But still this science seemed to us 
mysterious and almost magical. After that time, the book was 
mislaid. In 1829 I met a man who believed firmly in Lavater, 
and who made me a witness of some such miraculous applications 
of physiognomical science, that I had a great desire to study it. 
I tried to procure a copy of the book, but could not find one. 
Something else came across me, and I forgot all about it. 

At last, here, on the very day of my arrival, I open a closet full 
of books, and the first I take up, is a copy of the works of Jean 
Gaspard de Lavater, minister of the holy gospel at Zurich, pub- 
lished in 1781, in three volumes, folio, translated into French, with 
engravings, &c. You may judge of my delight, and you must 
know that never have I read anything more agreeable, more in- 
structive, more healthy. Poetry, wisdom, profound observation, 
evangelic charity, pure morality, exquisite sensibility, and grandeur 
and simplicity of style, all this have I found in Lavater, whilst I 
was only seeking for physiognomical observations, and conclusions, 
erroneous perhaps, at least conjectural and hazardous. 

Since you ask rae for a long letter, and you are always in- 
terested in works of thought, I wish to speak to you about Lava- 
ter. And, besides, where I am just now, and, in the life I lead, 
it would be difficult to give you anything newer in literature. I 
hope with all my heart that the desire may seize you to make ac- 
quaintance with the guest, the venerable friend whom I have just 
discovered in this deserted house. 

I should also be glad if you, like all the other proud innovators 

o 



204 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

of our time, had, until now, despised Lavater's science, as a tissue 
of reveries founded upon a false principle, that I might have the 
pleasure of making you change your opinion. 

At present physiognomy is considered a science judged, con- 
demned, and buried, and that upon its ruin, another science rises, 
not yet judged, but still worthy of examination and attention, 
phrenology. I hate the contempt and ingratitude with which our 
generation overturns the idols of our fathers, and caresses the 
disciples after crucifying the professors and martyrs. To prefer 
Schiller to Shakespeare, Corneille to the Spanish tragic poets, 
Moliere to the Latin comic writers, La Fontaine to Phcedrus or 
JEsop, this appears to me, not only an error but a crime. Ad- 
mit that the copyist, who from extra care, time, and attention 
sui passes his model, has therefore more merit than his mas- 
ter, we establish an abominable doctrine of injustice and false- 
hood. However perfect may be the translation or imitation, 
however important or necessary any improvement which you 
make in it, however highly finished, and embellished the produc- 
tion to which the mother ivork has given birth, this last is still not 
the less superior, venerable, generating and sacred. Certainly, old 
Homer will never be equalled by those who may do even better 
than he, for which amongst them would have had an idea of epic 
poetry, had he never read Homer ? 

Well, for my own part, I doubt not, that some day man will 
push his examination of the human form so far, that he will read 
the faculties and inclinations of his fellow beings as though in an 
open book. Have Gall, Spurzheim and their successors been the 
originators of this science ? No, no more than Vespucci was 
the conqueror of America, and nevertheless one half the universe 
bears his name, whilst the name of Columbus is only retained by 
a small province. 

The system of Dr. Gall is in honour to-day, or at least it is 
within sight. It is examined, criticized, and Lavater is forgotten. 
He falls back into dust in the libraries ; his editions are exhausted 
and not reprinted. I know not even if you could succeed in pro- 
curing yourself a copy of one of the most beautiful books which 
the human intellect ever produced. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 205 

But Gall was a physician and Lavater an ecclesiastic. Our age, 
so positive, so material, has naturally preferred a mechanical ex- 
planation to a philosophical discovery. It is not the less true that 
cranioscopy enters into physiognomy, and that it is in Lavater' s 
opinion its essential and fundamental basis. This part of physi- 
ognomy, is of such importance, says he, that it demands a separate 
consideration. It belongs to anatomy to seek for the varia- 
tions of intelligence and to draw the revelation of the faculties of 
man from an exact knowledge of the different conformations of 
the brain. This wise and persevering observer will appear, adds 
the citizen of Zurich ; he will bring back the world to the truth, 
or at least to the desire of truth. From discoverv to discoverv, 
observation to observation, prejudices will be overcome, and man 
will recognise that physiognomy is a science as important, as diffi- 
cult, and as exalted as any of the other sciences upon which 
civilized society is established. 

Full of love, respect and conviction for his favourite science, 
the good Lavater yet modestly declares that he was not its first 
discoverer. He cites several of his pioneers, Aristotle, Montaigne, 
Solomon. He adduces the following proverbs from the Book of 
Wisdom. 

" Haughty eyes, and a puffed up heart. 

" Wisdom is seated on the brow of a sage, but the eyes of a 
fool wander to the ends of the earth. 

" There are men whose looks are full of pride, and whose eye- 
lids are raised with pride.' ' 

Lavater also adduces several passages from Herder which sup- 
port his opinion ; and here is a very remarkable one, which you 
have doubtless been fortunate enough to read in German, but 
which I bring to your notice again, because 1 find it embued with 
the genius of German metaphor, a metaphor at once lofty and 
uncommon. 

" What hand can seize upon that substance, lodged within the 
head and under the skull of man ? Can an organ of mere flesh 
and blood reach the abyss of faculties and internal strength which 
ferment or repose therein ? Divinity itself has had a care to 



206 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

cover this sacred summit, the abode and workshop of the most 
secret operations, with a forest, emblem of those sacred woods 
where the ancient mysteries were celebrated. One feels a reli- 
gious terror at the idea of this shady mountain which encloses 
lightnings, one of which escaped from chaos might illuminate, em- 
bellish or destroy a world. 

" And of what expression also is not this forest of Olympus 
capable ! in its natural growth, the manner in which the hair is 
arranged, or extends, divides or mingles ! 

" The neck on which the head is supported, shows not what is in 
the interior of a man, but that which he would express. Some- 
times its noble and lofty position announces its dignity, sometimes 
in bending, it announces the resignation of the martyr, and some- 
times it is a column, emblem of the strength of Hercules. 

"The brow is the seat of serenity, joy, chagrin, anguish, stupidity, 
ignorance or wickedness. It is a brass tablet upon which all 
qualities are engraved in characters of fire. . . . Where the brow 
begins to lower itself, the understanding appears to be confounded 
with volition. It is here that the soul assembles and concentrates 
its strength for resistance. 

" Below the brow is placed its beautiful boundary, the eyebrow 
— a bow of heaven in its mildness, but a bow of discord- when ex- 
pressing anger. Thus in both cases, it is the announcing sign of 
the affections. 

" In general that region where the mutual links are assembled 
between the eyebrows, the eyes and the nose, is the seat of the 
soul's expression in the countenance, that is to say, the expression 
of will and active life. 

" The noble, profound and occult sense of hearing is placed by 
nature at the side of the head, where it is half hidden. Man 
hears for himself, therefore the ear is deprived of ornament. Deli- 
cacy, finish and depth, are its graces. 

<fc A delicate and pure mouth is perhaps ©ne of the best recom- 
mendations. The beauty of the portal announces the beauty of 
that which is to pass from it. Here too is the voice, interpreter 
of the heart and the soul, expression of truth, of friendship and of 
the most tender sentiments."* 

• Herder— Plastique. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 207 

After leaving to the ancients the glory of having created phy- 
siognomy, and to the moderns the honour of seizing it in its poeti- 
cal side, Lavater endeavours to prove that the assiduous and con- 
sciencious studies of his whole life have only advanced the science 
one step. He entreats his successors to rectify his errors, and cor- 
rect his judgments. No man, no learned man especially, was ever 
more mild and humble than himself ; in every thing he had an 
apostolic character. Overwhelmed by the raillery, wrangling and 
pedantry of his contemporaries, he replies to them with an un- 
alterable calm. The piofessor Lichtenberg attacked him with 
more bitterness than any one else. Lavater takes his pamphlet, 
is rather affected by it secretly perhaps, (for he himself tells us 
he was naturally nervous and irascible) ; but brought back to the 
sentiment of christian philosophy by the conviction and practice 
of his whole life, he writes his reply in the spirit of wisdom and 
charity. He examines the attack with the precision and love of 
order which characterise him, saying, " I imagine to myself that 
we are going to peruse this, side by side, and that we are going 
reciprocally to communicate each to the other, the manner in 
which each of us looks upon nature and upon truth, with the 
moderation becoming sages, and the frankness becoming men." 

FartheiAon, struck with a fine passage' in Professor Lichtenberg, 
he exclaims with simplicity, " This language is after my own 
heart. It is under the eyes of such a man I should have wished 
to write my Essays." 

Virtuous priest ! nevertheless they attack him in what his intel- 
lect cherishes and caresses the most, in the morality of his science. 
The modesty and virtue of the critics (always humble and tolerant, 
as you know !) were alarmed at seeing this impious innovator 
carry his scrutinizing glances into the mysteries of conscience. 
" What are you about to do ?" they exclaim bitterly, " you are 
trying to appropriate that which belongs to God alone, the know- 
ledge of the secrets of the human heart; and when you have 
taught your fellow beings to sound and to unmask one another, an 
implacable hatred for the bad will be the result, you will have de- 
stroyed mercy; a supreme contempt for the silly will ensue, 



203 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

and you destroy charity. Lavater bows. The objection is a seri- 
ous one, he replies, and shows a beautiful soul, but all science 
may become fatal in evil hands, but holy and useful for those who 
direct it towards good. Must we decide that there is to be no 
science, because it maybe abused. But, they add, "how will you 
repair, or how will you prevent the injustice which an error may 
make you commit ? or if you claim to be infallible, will your dis- 
ciples prove so ? We see every day, an honest man with ignoble 
features, and a scoundrel with a countenance expressive of frank- 
ness and loyalty/' Lavater denies the fact. Every novice who is 
in a hurry to practise must commit grave errors, he thinks, but 
whoever would confide the secrets of medicine to mere tyros would 
expose himself to fearful danger. The enlightened man does 
more good than the ignorant man does harm, for ignorance obtains 
no long credit amongst mankind, whilst the fame of the wise man 
grows from day to day. All science is an apostleship, which re- 
quires men who have been proved, and are worthy of being in- 
vested with it. As to these rascals with angel faces, and honest 
people with villainous features, whom they oppose to him, he de- 
clares that these appearances would not deceive a true judge of 
physiognomy. "It is often the. case, *' he says, "that the indi- 
cations of a generous passion are so near those the same passion 
exhibits when it has degenerated into excess or crime, that an in- 
experienced eye may be deceived. There only needs half a line, 
a slight curve, a difference quite inappreciable at first sight. So 
little is wanted ! say they, but then, this little is everything, 

" It often happens that the best dispositions are concealed under 
a revolting exterior. A vulgar eye sees nothing but ruin and 
desolation ! he does not see that education and circumstances have 
interposed obstacles to every effort tending towards perfection. 
The physiognomist observes, examines, and suspends his judgment. 
He hears a thousand voices crying to him, 'Look at that man.'' 
But in the midst of the tumult he also hears another voice, a divine 
voice, crying to him, ■ Seest thou that man ?' He finds subject 
for adoration where others blaspheme, because they cannot under- 
stand that the visage, from which they turn their eyes, offers the 
traces of the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of the Creator. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 209 

He sees the marks of a rascal in the mendicant who comes to his 
door, and he does not repulse him, but speaks to him with cor- 
diality. He throws a penetrating glance into his soul, and what 
sees he there ? Alas ! vice, disorder, and total degradation. But 
is that all he discovers, what, nothing good ? Suppose it to be so, 
still he only sees the clay, which has no right to say to the potter, 
' Why hast thou fashioned me thus ?' He sees, he adores in 
secret, and turning away his face, he conceals a tear, whose lan- 
guage is energetic indeed, not to men, but to him who made them. 
Wisdom without goodness is folly. I would not possess thy insight, 
oh ! Jesus, if at the same time thou didst not endow me with thy 
heart. May justice rule my judgment, and my actions be guided 
by charity ! 

" A just conception of the liberty of man, and of the bounds 
which restrain it, is necessary to render him humble and cou- 
rageous, modest and active. To this point, but no further, but to 
this point ! this is the voice of God and truth ; to all who have 
ears to hear, it is declared, Be what thou art, become what thou 
canst. " 

Elsewhere, apropos of physical monsters, the same sentiment 
of human tenderness and religious mercy reappears with his usual 
eloquence. " All that concerns humanity is a family concern 
for us. Thou art a man, and all that is man beside thee is like a 
branch of the same tree, a member of the same body. Oh ! man, 
rejoice in the existence of all those to whom existence is a blessing, 
and learn to bear with all that God bears. The existence of one 
man cannot render the existence of another man superfluous, and 
no man can fill the place of another man/' 

This tolerance and mildness of judgment at the aspect of de- 
formity is the more touching because no one ever carried the love 
of beauty and the most exquisite appreciation of form farther than 
Lavater. He prostrates himself before the purity of Greek out- 
line, but proscribes with discernment the modern imitations of a 
beauty no longer existing. We can all imagine that in the 
golden age, when all was godlike, man was so also, and that in 
the regularity of the outlines of his form there was something 
superhuman, w T hich has been effaced and has degenerated since. 



210 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

Some races of men perish entirely ; but Lavater would not have 
been so convinced of this opinion, had he seen many oriental faces. 
I remember to have seen upon the quays at Venice Armenians 
almost as beautiful as the gods of Olympus. We still find, al- 
though seldom, in our European countries, faces sufficiently noble 
to serve as models for the sculptor of antique subjects ; and I do 
not agree with Lavater in thinking that nature with us does not 
succeed in forming outlines perfectly correct and pure. Nevertheless, 
I approve of his criticism on that exaggeration of antiquity which the 
mediocre painters of his time took for the ideal. He distinguishes 
the chefs- d'ocuvres of Greece from those heads on medals struck off 
rudely, and upon which the almost entire absence of forehead, the 
short perpendicular nose, the great prominence of the chin, and 
enormous distance between the eyes, produce only a frightful cari- 
cature of beauty. 

He is grieved to see that the spirit of careful examination and 
rigorous discernment has not sufficiently presided over the know- 
ledge which the greatest painters themselves have acquired of the 
antique. In Raphael himself, whom he thinks the first amongst 
artists, he finds a little exaggeration in his sense of perfection. 
" Everywhere," says he, "we find in his works a sense of greatness 
which is his principal characteristic, but every where also we per- 
ceive his defect. I call that great which produces a permanent 
effect, and an ever during pleasure. I call that a defect which is 
contrary to nature and to truth." 

After a long and scientific examination of the incorrectness, and 
sublimity of Raphael's principal figures, after having demonstrated 
that a certain head of an angel or of a virgin loses part of its divinity 
by overstepping nature, Lavater terminates his analysis by this 
noble eulogium : 

" Raphael is and always will be an apostolic character, that is to 
say, that among painters he is what Christ's apostles were amongst 
men ; and inasmuch as his works render him superior to all other 
artists, so does his beautiful countenance distinguish him from 
ordinary forms. What other mortal resembles him ? When I 
wish to be filled with admiration for the perfection of God's works, 
I have only to recall to my mind the form of Raphael !" 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 211 

This sacred love of beauty, because according to Lavater, true 
beauty is inseparable from beauty of soul, is expressed in several 
parts of his book with the naivete of an artist. This is what 
he writes apropos of a mouth : " This mouth shows sweetness, 
delicacy, circumspection, goodness, and modesty. Such a mouth 
is for loving and being beloved/' Elsewhere, apropos of the 
expression in hair, he cries, " "Were it only through admiration 
of thy hair, Algernon Sidney, I salute thee !" 

I will not enter into the detail of Lavater's system with you. 
For my own part I am convinced that the system is good, and 
that Lavater must have been almost an infallible physiognomist. 
But I think that a book, however excellent, can never give any- 
thing but a very imperfect initiation into the mysteries of science. 
It is much to be wished that Lavater had formed disciples 
worthy of him, and that physiognomy, such as he himself under- 
stood it, could have been taught and transmitted by course of 
lectures, as phrenology has been. But probably all the treasure 
of experience which this extraordinary man had amassed has 
gone with him into the tomb. He has only reaped an ephemeral 
and much disputed glory. 

It would be therefore both presumptuous and imprudent to 
believe oneself a physiognomist only through having read 
Lavater s book, even with all possible attention. There can be 
no good demonstration without its application and example. 
Here the example is an engraved figure executed with more or 
less exactitude. These engravings are generally very mediocre, 
and even were they much better, they would still be far from 
revealing to the most discerning eye all the varieties, all the 
finesse, all the complications of nature's works. The study must 
be prosecuted with living subjects, as Gall has done, but it 
ought to be practised under the direction of masters; otherwise - 
the least error in the engraving might lead the artist into an 
everlasting list of errors extremely grave in their consequences. 
Certainly I should never dare henceforth to give forth a judg- 
ment upon any physiognomy if ever so little complicated, I 
should feel infinitely mof e scrupulous than I have been hitherto, 
when abandoning myself to my instinct, and certain rough 
notions, which we have all imbibed of physiognomy without 



212 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

having studied it ; notions bold enough and false enough also, 
for the most part, I can assure you. 

It is sufficient to tell you that Lavater distinguishes two 
fields for observation, the soft parts of the face and the bony 
portions. The solid parts, the brow, the immoveable bones, 
the curve of the nose, and the contour of the chin indicate the 
faculties. The soft parts, the skin, the flesh, the membranes and 
cartilages, by their alterations or their purity, by their colour, 
attitude or folds, by their tension, overgrowth or reduction, 
reveal the habits of life, the vices or the virtues, all that has 
been acquired. The bony conformation indicates only that 
which has been given by nature, and thus it is that grandeur 
often reigns on the upper part of a face, whilst the lower part 
displays sensuality exaggerated even to brutality. It must not 
be forgotten that Lavater is a spiritualist. He thinks as you 
and I do, that man is free^ that from Providence he receives 
his portion, always an equitable one in the great inheritance of 
good and evil which the first man left to his descendants, and 
that strength is given to him in proportion to his instincts, 
whilst he does not tread under foot the thought of supporting 
it by his struggles with himself. The materialists will admit, I 
suppose, the influence of education and experience over organ- 
ization; and by ascribing all explanation of our human destinies 
to chance, one may also quickly recognize the variations which 
the change and vicissitudes of thought and character induce in 
the material portion of our being. Thus the attitude of the 
whole body, the form and posture of all the limbs, the walk, 
the gesture, all reveal in man, either the character he has, or 
that which he wishes to assume. All the talent of the observer 
consists in distinguishing the real from the affected, however 
knowingly it may be sustained. See what Lavater says of a 
man who supports himself upon his loins with outspread legs 
and his hands behind his back: 

" Never will a modest and sensible man take such an attitude, 
this position presupposes affectation and ostentation, a man who 
wishes to gain credit by pretension and presumption." 

Certainly, Lavater would never have applied this observation to 
Napoleon, and yet it is so just that it explains the contemptuous 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 213 

laugh with, which all sensible men see an actor imitate the cari- 
catured bearing of the man of genius. Talma was the only man 
who could imitate it ; because Talma also in his class, was a 
man of genius. 

In general, if after reading Lavater, you will apply your re- 
collections to exceptional characters, you will be struck with 
the truth of his decisions. These characters being decided 
and boldly drawn by nature, will give you striking examples, 
appreciable at first sight. It will not be so with mediocre cha- 
racters. Their false virtues, and their petty vices will be 
slightly betrayed by their insignificant countenances. Their 
mediocrity is the result of vulgar faculties which neither amount 
to intellect, nor sink to idiocy. Divers proportions of aptitude, 
of which neither invades the province of the others, give to the 
countenance several expressions of which neither is the principal 
and dominant one. How can we judge of such a physiognomy, 
unless through extreme patience and skill. Nevertheless this 
good Lavater, who despises nothing, and who takes pleasure in 
elevating and encouraging all good instincts, however little de- 
veloped, forces us to read upon these inattractive visages, tact, 
the love of order, good sense, memory ; if not these qualities, 
he sees candour, probity and mildness demanding his esteem. 
A beggar holds out his hand to him one day ; " How much do 
you wish for, my friend ?" cries he, struck with the expression of 
honesty in the man's countenance. " I wish for nine sous," replied 
the good man. " Here they are," said the physiognomist, " why 
did you not ask for more ? I would give you all you ask for." 
" I assure you sir," said the poor man, " that this is all I want." 

A young man and a girl are brought before Lavater : one 
asking bread for the offspring of her connexion with the 
young man, tbe other accusing the young girl of deceit and 
debauchery. He affects all his audience by his extreme as- 
surance and all the appearance of virtuous indignation ; the 
other is agitated, she knows not what to do, but to weep, and 
pray to God to make the truth known. Lavater is uncertain ; 
but he examines them both attentively, and pronounces in 
favour of the young girl. Soon after satisfying the law, the 
young man confesses his wrong. Lavater recounts this adven- 



214 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

ture in a touching manner which reminds one of Kotzebue's 
sentimental dramas. 

The great difference between Gall and Lavater on the subject 
of phrenology is, that one makes the seat of the most important 
faculties in the anterior part of the head, and contents himself 
by thinking that the other half of the skull ought not to be in- 
different to any one who would be willing to make it an especial 
study ; whilst the other disdaining the study of the human 
face, points out with a pencil on the human skull, the seats of 
all the faculties and instincts. I fear lest Gall may have sought 
for the originality of his system at the expense of one phase of 
the truth. Not wishing to be the disciple and continuer of 
Lavater, and wishing to create a science, at all risks, he has 
fallen into great prejudices. To divide the soul in this manner 
like the compartments of a chess board seems to me too decided a 
method not to savour a little of charlatanism. I find more 
nobility, more grandeur, and at the same time more probability 
in the vast coup d'ceil of Lavater which embraces the whole 
being, and questions all its movements. 

I do not know enough of Gall's system to discuss [this sub- 
ject at greater length. Besides, I have already told you, that 
it is not as a dissertation on physiognomy that I wish to engage 
you to read Lavater, I recommend his book to you as an edi- 
fying work, eloquent and full of interest, unction and charm. 
You will find there, even in the most systematic parts of it, the 
same impulses of goodness, the same need of tenderness and 
sympathy ; and at the same time so profound a knowledge of 
the mysteries and contradictions of the moral nature of man, 
as in itself alone would constitute a work of genius. Here is 
a fragment in which you will find at once the spirit of the 
system, the warmth of eloquence, the highest science of the 
human heart, and the enthusiasm of '. oodness. He is speaking 
of the reciprocal influence one being has upon another. 

" The similarity of the bony part, supposes also that of the 
nerves and muscles. It is nevertheless true that the difference 
of education may affect these in such a manner that even an 
experienced eye will not be able to perceive the point of at- 
traction. But cause these two fundamental and resembling 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 215 

forms to approach one another, they will mutually attract each 
other ; take away the obstacles which separate them, and soon 
nature will triumph. They will recognize that they are " bone 
of the same bone, and flesh of the same flesh." Yet more, the 
visages which differ in their fundamental form, can love, sym- 
pathize, and attract one another, and, if they are of a tender, 
feeling, or susceptible character, this conformity will in time esta- 
blish between them a likeness in their physiognomy which will 
be even more striking. The assimilation has always appeared 
more striking to me, when, without any foreign intervention, 
chance united a genius, formed entirely to communicate, and a 
genius formed entirely to receive, and they become attached to 
each other either from circumstances or inclination. When the 
first had exhausted all he had to give, and the other had re- 
ceived all that was necessary for him, the assimilation of their 
physiognomies ceased also. It had attained so to speak, its 
degree of satiety. 

" Yet a word to thee, too easy and too sensitive youth ! Be 
circumspect in thy connexions and do not blindly throw thy- 
self into the arms of a friend whom thou hast not sufficiently 
proved. A false appearance of sympathy may mislead you : 
fear to yield to it. Without doubt some being exists whose soul 
is in unison with thine. Be patient, he will come sooner or 
later, and when you have, found him, his friendship will 
animate, will elevate thee, he will give to thee what thou 
wantest, and take from that which weighs upon thee ; the fire 
of his looks will kindle thine, his harmonious voice will soften 
the roughness of thy accents, his reflective prudence will calm 
thy impetuous vivacity ; the tenderness he bears thee will be 
reflected in thy features, and all those who know him will re- 
cognize him in thee. Thou wilt be what he is, without losing 
what thou thyself art. The sentiment of friendship will make 
thee discover in him qualities which an indifferent eye would 
scarcely perceive. It is this faculty of seeing and feeling all 
which there is of divine in his soul, which will cause thy phy- 
siognomy to resemble his/' 

And here is a portrait of a debauchee, which seems to me 
to imply the highest talent of the pieacher. 



216 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

" Idleness and intemperance have disfigured this coun- 
tenance. At least it was not in this form that Nature fashioned 
these features. This look, these lips, these wrinkles display an 
impatient thirst which it is impossible to appease. This coun- 
tenance announces a man who wills without power, and who 
feels equally the wish and the impossibility of gratifying it. In 
the original, it is the expression which most vividly marks 
the desire always disappointed and always springing up again, 
which is at the same time the consequence and indication of 
debauchery. 

" Young man, look at vice of whatever kind under its true 
form, and it will be sufficient to make you nee it for ever." 

Is there anything more attractive, more beautiful, than this 
picture of friendship ? Is there any thing more fearful than this 
picture of vice ? Lavater cites a-propos of this subject a verse 
of a canticle of Gellerts, the translation of which seems to me 
to fail in neither the strength nor naivete* which ought to cha- 
racterize this sort of production. 

Oh thou of fearful sight, Oh toi, dont l'aspect epouvante, 

Whose youth was once so bright, Que ta jeunesse etait brillante ! 

Where are thy beauties fled ? Helas ! 011 sont tes agremens? 

Destruction's dreadful mark De la destruction l'image 

Upon thy brow is dark — Sillonne deja ton image 

Thy sinful tale is read. Et preche tes egaremens. 

Lavater's reflexions upon an engraving, which shows Vol- 
taire's features under more than twenty different points of view, 
are no less remarkable for their truth and wisdom. 

" We see in this personage some one greater and more 
energetic than ourselves. We feel our weakness in his pre- 
sence, but without feeling that he ennobles us, whilst a being 
who is at once great and good awakes within us not only the 
sentiment of our own weakness, but, by a secret charm, raises 
us above ourselves, and communicates to us some of his own 
grandeur. Not contented merely to admire, we love, and 
far from being oppressed by the sense of his superiority, our 
enlarged heart dilates and opens itself to joy. These like- 
nesses of Voltaire are very far from producing a similar effect. 
Whilst looking at them, one must expect or apprehend a satir- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 217 

ical remark, or biting sally. They mortify our self love, and 
annihilate mediocrity." 

There never was a reader of Lavater, who did not eagerly 
seek in his portrait gallery, to find a physical resemblance to 
himself, and also, by the application of this physiognomy, to 
find the key of his own organization and his own destiny. In 
spite of oneself, the mind clings to this idea with a supersti- 
tious inquietude. Now, therefore, I must tell you, that a face, 
thinner, more masculine, and older than the face of your best 
friend, but nevertheless strikingly similar in the outlines, is ac- 
companied by this analysis. You will judge of the moral 
likeness better than I can. As for myself, I give no judg- 
ment, your best friend being the person of all others whom 
I have been the least able to judge impartially, either in good 
or bad fortune. The portrait is that of a mediocre painter, 
Henry Fuseli. 

" We must characterize this physiognomy, and we shall 
have much to say of it. The curve which is formed by the 
whole profile is extremely remarkable ; and indicates an ener- 
getic character which knows no obstacles. The brow, by its 
position and its contour, belongs more to the poet than the 
thinker. I find in it more strength than sweetness, the fire of 
imagination rather than the sang-froid of reason. The nose 
seems to be the seat of a bold spirit. The mouth promises 
application and precision ; and yet it costs this artist some 
effort to put the finishing touches to his works. Sometimes 
parts singularly highly finished are found, which contrast curi- 
ously with the negligence of the whole. One may easily ima- 
gine that he is very subject to impetuous impulses. But 
would it be thought that he loved with tenderness, warmth, 
excess ? Nothing is however more true ; although on the 
other side, his love has always a need of being awakened by 
the presence of the beloved object; for absent, he forgets and 
cares nothing about her. The person he loves may lead him 
like a child whilst she remains with him ; but if she quits 
him, she may reckon upon his entire indifference. To be led, 
he must be smitten ; and although capable of the proudest ac- 
tions, the least complaisance costs him an effort. His imagi- 
nation is always seeking the sublime, and is pleased with pro- 



218 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

digies. The sanctuary of the graces is not closed to him, but 
he does not like to sacrifice to them. In the principal figures 
of his pictures a kind of tension may be remarked, which in 
truth is not common, but which he often carries to exaggera- 
tion, at the expense of reason. No one loves more tenderly ; 
the sentiment of love is painted in his face ; but the form of 
the osseous system of his countenance displays in him the in- 
stinct for terrible scenes, and for the acts of power and energy 
which they demand. 

Nature formed him for a poet, a painter or an orator. But 
inexorable fate does not always make our strength propor- 
tionate to our will ; and sometimes distributes a rich endow- 
ment of will to common souls whose faculties are very limited, 
and sometimes assigns to grand faculties only a feeble and 
powerless volition." 

I know not if there is a biographer of Jean Gaspard Lavater ; 
his life must have been as beautiful and edifying as his works. 
If I were in Switzerland as you are, I should go to Zurich ex- 
pressly to look after documents concerning the destiny of this 
apostolic character. But alas ! his name perhaps is already effaced 
from the memory of his countrymen, perhaps there is not even 
a monumental stone to preserve it ! If you have ever been 
there, tell me how this is. 

As for the rest, they say one knows what the actions of a 
man must be when one knows his soul, and I recommend you 
to peruse his portrait drawn by himself, opposite the engraving 
representing it. It is, apparently, an organization very delicate, 
very fine, very sensitive. Without helping yourself by the de- 
scription, you can recognize special faculties, and would almost 
call them fatal; the soul's tranquillity throws a great sweet- 
ness over the changeable countenance, the serenity of virtue 
shines through the slight veil of an irritable and impassioned 
temperament, nervous to the highest degree. This is the 
summary of the detailed analysis which he gives us of his 
face and character. 

" Without knowing the original, I should say, in full certainty, 
that I could perceive a great deal of imagination, lively and 
quick feelings, which do not long retain their first impres- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 219 

sions, a clear spirit, only seeking for instruction, and more 
given to analysis than to profound research ; with more of 
judgment than reason ; great calmness and great activity, and 
proportionate facility. This man, I should say, is not fitted for 
the trade of arms, nor for the labours of a desk. A mere 
nothing oppresses him, let him act freely, he is overladen 
already. His imagination and his sensibility transform each grain 
of sand into a mountain. But then, also, thanks to his natural 
elasticity, a mountain often weighs upon him no more than a 
grain of sand. 

He is loving, without ever having been in love. He has never 
lost a single friend. His thoughtful character brings him un- 
ceasingly back to those precepts he has traced for himself, and 
of which he has formed this species of code : 

" Be that which thou art ; let nothing in itself be either great 
or little in thine eyes. Be faithful in the least things. Fix thy 
attention upon the things thou art doing, as though thou hadst 
that alone to do. He who has acted well in the present mo- 
ment has laid up a good action for eternity. Simplify objects, 
whether in acting, enjoying or suffering. Give thy heart to him 
who governs hearts. Be just and exact even in the smallest de- 
tails. Hope in the future, know how to enjoy all things, and 
learn to be able to dispense with everything." 

It is interesting to hear him relate how he first became en- 
thusiastic about physiognomy. " Until the age of twenty-five," 
says he, "I had not thought of making any remarks upon phy- 
siognomy. Yet sometimes, at the sight of some physiognomies, 
I felt a kind of inward shudder which lasted some moments even 
after the departure of the person, without my knowing the cause, 
or without even thinking on the physiognomy which had pro- 
duced the effect." 

For my own part, I have always believed some organisations 
to be so exquisite that they possessed almost divine faculties. In 
them the terrestrial envelope is so ethereal, so transparent, so im- 
pressionable, that the soul seems to see and penetrate through the 
matter which clothes or composes the exterior world. Their fibres 
are so delicately strung and so tender, that all which escapes the 
grosser senses of other men makes theirs vibrate, like the slight- 

p 



220 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER; 

est breeze troubling the chords of an iEolian harp and making 
them tremble. You, my dear Franz, must be one of these perfect 
and half angelic organizations. Your physiognomy, your com- 
plexion, your imagination, your genius, all reveal those faculties 
with which heaven endows its elect. As for me, I am one of those 
who sleep at night, and walk and eat during the day. I have one 
of those robust, active, careless and indefatigable organizations, 
upon which all delicacies of perception and all the revelations of 
a magnetic sense would fall quite dead. I have lived too much 
as a peasant, as a Bohemian, as a soldier. I have thickened my 
skin, I have hardened the sole of my foot on the stones of the 
highway, and I now recall with astonishment those days of my 
youth, when the least disquietude, or the least hope made me 
shrink within myself like a sensitive plant. Why am I become 
a stone ? 

Thus however has my destiny willed it ; but whilst becoming 
wild and rude myself, I am not become the less devout, nay, super- 
stitious towards superior organizations. The nearer I feel myself 
sinking to the condition of the common labourer, the more fear 
and respect do I feci for those frail and nervous beings who seem 
to live an electric life, and who seem to read the mysteries of the 
supernatural world. I have a frightful fear of fatalists, sor- 
cerers, somnambulists, inspired people, diviners and pythonesses. 
If my imagination is struck by an appearance of sorcery or divi- 
nation, I have such an attraction for the marvellous that I am 
quite capable of yielding to the strange and inexplicable attrac- 
tion of fear. 

Lavater's power over me would have been immense, if I had 
known him, since even from the depths of the tomb, his intel- 
lectual power, joined to so much wisdom and virtue, has made 
so deep and absolute an impression on my heart. Since I have 
been shut up in this retreat, the remembrance of all that is dear 
to me has only presented itself to my remembrance through the 
magic mirror he has placed before my eyes. At the sight of 
your cherished spirits, oh ! my friends, oh ! my masters, I salute 
the treasures of goodness and greatness which are within you, and 
which the finger of God has levealed in sacred characters on your 
noble brows. The immense dome of Everard's bald head, so 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 221 

beautiful, so vast, so perfect and so complete in its contour that 
one cannot determine which noble faculty in him predominates 
over the others ; the nose, the chin, the eyebrow, whose energy 
would make one tremble if the exquisite delicacy of the intellect 
were not displayed in the nostril, and superhuman goodness in the 
look, and indulgent wisdom in the lips ; this head, at once that 
of a hero, and a saint, appears to me in my dreams by the side 
of the austere and terrible face of the great La Mennais. In 
this last, the brow is an unbroken wall, a brass tablet — the 
seal of indomitable vigour, and furrowed like Everard's be- 
tween the eyebrows, with those perpendicular wrinkles ichich belong 
exclusively, says Lavater, to those of high capacity who think justly 
and nobly. The stiff or rigid inclination of the profile, the an- 
gular narrowness of the visage, doubtless agree with the in- 
flexible probity, the hermit-like austerity and the incessant toil 
of thoughts ardent and vast as heaven. But the smile which 
comes suddenly to humanize this countenance, changes my ter- 
ror into confidence, my respect into adoration. Do you see them 
grasping hands with each other, these two men of frail constitu- 
tion, who nevertheless appeared like giants before the astonished 
Parisians, when the defence of a holy cause made their appearance 
from their retreat necessary, and raised them on the mountain 
of Jerusalem to pray and to menace, to bless the people, and 
make the pharisees and doctors of the law tremble in their 
synagogue ? 

I see them every evening, when I am wandering through the 
vast and obscure chambers of my deserted house. Behind them 
I see Lavater with his clear and limpid eyes, his pointed nose, 
the indication of penetration and finesse; his ennobled resem- 
blance to Erasmus ; his paternal gesture and his charitable and 
pious words. I hear him say to me, " Go, follow them, try to 
resemble them, behold your masters, behold your guides ; re- 
ceive their counsels, observe their precepts, repeat the sacred 
formula of their prayer. They know the will of God, they will 
point out his way. Go, my child, that thy wounds may be 
healed, thy soul purified, and clothed" in a new robe, that the 
Lord may bless thee, and place thee amongst the number of Lis 
flock." 

And then, I see pass around me, phantoms, less imposing, but 

p 2 



222 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

full of grace and charm. These are my companions, my brothers. 
You above the rest my dear Franz, it is you I place in a picture, 
inundated with light, a magical apparition which surges over the 
obscurity of my evenings of meditation. By the light of tapers, 
and through the halo of admiration by which you are enveloped 
and crowned, it is sweet to me, to meet your affectionate look, 
which whilst your fingers are giving new marvels to the wonders 
of Weber, is bent on me, and seems to say : " Brother, dost 
thou understand me ? it is to thy soul I am speaking." Yes, 
my youthful friend, yes, inspired artist, I understand this divine 
language, although 1 cannot speak it. Why am I not at least a 
painter, to fix upon your portrait some of those passing gleams 
which illuminate it, when the God descends upon you, when a 
blueish flame plays in your hair, and the purest of the muses bends 
smilingly towards you ! 

But if I painted such a picture, I should not like to forget the 
charming figure of Puzzi, your beloved pupil. Raphael and Te- 
baldeo, his youthful friend, could not appear with more grace before 
God and man than you two, my dear children did, when I saw you 
one evening, across that hundred voiced orchestra, when all was 
hushed to hear you improvisation, and the child, standing behind 
you, pale, full of emotion, immovable as a statue, and yet trem- 
bling like the leaves of a flower ready to drop, seemed to breathe 
harmony through every pore, and to open his pure lips to receive 
the honey you were shedding forth for him. They say the arts 
have lost their poetry, it seems not so to me. Have we not had 
happv mornings and evenings in my garret with its blue curtain ; 
a modest workshop, rather near the snows of the roof in winter, 
and warmed rather after the manner of the Leads at Venice, in 
summer ? But what matter ? a few engravings after Raphael, 
-a Spanish mat to lie upon, good pipes, the intelligent little cat 
Trozzi, a few chosen books, poetry above all, (oh ! language of 
the gods, which I also understand and cannot utter myself !) is 
not this enough for an artist's garret ? Read verses to me, im- 
provise upon the piano those delicious pastorals which make me 
and the aged Everard weep, whilst we recollect our youthful days, 
our hillsides and the goats we led to pasture. During this time, 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 223 

let me inhale the intoxication of latakia, and sink into an ecstasy 
upon a pile of cushions. Have we not had some happy days in 
our life ? have we not been good children of the God who blesses 
simple hearts ? have we not seen the hours fly, without wishing to 
hasten their course, as all the men of the present time do, that they 
may reach I know not what miserable aim of ambition or vanity ? 
Do you remember Puzzi seated at the feet of the holy man of Bre- 
tagne, who spoke to him so beautifully, and with all the simplicity 
and goodness of an apostle, do you remember Everard plunged 
into a melancholy delight, whilst you were playing, and who rose 
suddenly, and placing his hands upon your shoulders, said to you 
in his deep voice : " Young man, you are sublime !" and my bro- 
ther Emanuel, who concealed me in one of the enormous pockets 
of his great coat, in order to get me into the Chamber of Peers, 
and who when he came back, put me down upon the piano, saying, 
** Next time you must put my dear brother up in a paper-parcel, 
that he may not disarrange his hair.'' Do you remember the peri 
in the azure robes, who descended one evening from heaven into 
the poet's garret, and sat between us, like one of the wonderful 
princesses in Hoffmann's merry tales ? Do you remember that other 
visit, not less fantastic, and grotesque also, where we behaved like 
saucy schoolboys ! so that I cannot help laughing at it even now, 
alone in the darkness of night. . . . Hush ! the echoes of the de- 
serted house, little used to such improprieties, awake and arfswer 
me in angry accents. The household gods look astonished, and 
speak of chasing me from their presence. Pardon and submission 
before you, mysterious beings who suffer my presence here ! you 
know I reverence and fear you; you know I have not unclosed 
the blinds to the sun's rays, since I have been with you ; you 
know that I have not even raised a curtain, that the profane regards 
of the neighbours might not penetrate into your sacred retreats. I 
have not gathered the flowers, I have not broken the vine branches 
which tapestry the walls. I have read the beautiful pages of 
Lavater, with precaution, and without distui*bing their ancient dust. 
I have removed nothing from its place. I have injured no plant. 
I have walked gently through the silence of the nights, not to 
trouble the solemnity of your mysteries. Banish me not, oh ye 



224 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

guardian gods of the pious man ! send not the Larvae and the 
Lamias to torment me in my sleep, and if you appear to me, let 
it be under the figure of my ancestors with their words of counsel 
and encouragement upon your lips. 

It is very strange that although I am excessively cowardly, I yet 
love such a heimit-like life. This must be because I love my fear 
itself ; it separates me from the world of reality, and the emotions 
it procures for me, make me feel vividly how completely I am a 
spiritualist in my belief and in my superstition. At night, when 
the moon sets behind the brilliant arrow-like spires of the cathe- 
dral, behind the ivy which crowns the doorway, sudden breezes 
pass which resemble the sudden pangs of suffering. Then I think 
of the souls in purgatory, and I pray to God to abridge their 
period of waiting and their misery. At other times, whilst sitting 
under the flowery pediment of this pretty Gothic door, with its 
frame of foliage which recalls to my memory the loves of Faust 
and Margaret, there suddenly comes to my side without my being 
able to see how it gets there, a great black cat, who mews in a 
most lamentable voice whilst presenting his hairy back to my hand, 
had electric sparks fly from it the moment I touch it. It is the 
neighbours' cat who comes over the roof, and does me the gratui- 
tous service of delivering me from the insolent rats. Well, not- 
withstanding this good office, this grimalkin has a most diabolical 
appearance, his eyes shine in the night like burning coals, and his 
contorsions have really something quite infernal about them. I 
should not dare to refuse to scratch his ear and stroke his back, 
for fear of his suddenly assuming his true form and flying off 
through the air with a burst of demon laughter. And even when 
there is neither breeze nor cat in the garden, there are strange 
noises, which it was long before I could understand. A continual 
dropping of sand, which falling from the tiles of the roof, into the 
ivy, makes a thousand other little sounds amongst their agitated 
leaves ; one might really believe that an army of sorcerers and 
their broomsticks, were carrying on their sports on the roof. But 
it is simply the house itself crumbling into dust, before it falls 
utterly into ruins ; it is cracking, dropping, and scattering its dust 
upon my head. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 225 

What then, beloved deserted house thou art crumbling away 
already, wilt thou really last so short a time ? Sacred asylum 
where so sweet a page of my life has passed in meditation ! hospi- 
table threshold, which my lips will press on departing, echoing 
walls where I have slept so peaceably under the wing of my guar- 
dian angel ! humble and simple asylum, beautiful in its neatness 
and order within, and delicious in its neglect and disorder with- 
out. Wert thou not my refuge and my shelter ? Dost thou not 
belong to me in a certain manner, and should I not prefer thee to 
the palaces for which men seek ? Ah ! thou wouldst have sufficed 
for the wants and desires of my whole life. Here in thy monastic 
enclosure I would have read the Fathers of the Church, and the 
writings of the Saints treating of solitary life. There would I 
have dreamed beautiful dreams of perfection, so easy to be exe- 
cuted afar from the noisy world and the vain discourse of men ! I 
would have purified myself from the stains of life, I would have 
enclosed myself as in the spotless marble tomb ; I would have 
interposed thy ancient walls and thy vine flower tapestry, between 
a perverse age and my timorous soul. I would have left thee only 
to perform good deeds : when my task was ended, I would have 
returned that I might commit no evil : and thou wishest to 
return to the earth already, from the entrails of which thou wert 
composed. Weary of serving the will of man, thou wishest to 
break and destroy thyself for the sake of repose, thou matter 
which human thought once animated ! And when I repass this way, 
perhaps I shall only find ruins in the spot where I have saluted a 
hospitable roof ! But with what am I busying myself, oh heedless 
that I am ! Insect scarcely born this morning, and I disquiet 
myself at the destruction of stone walls, and at the short duration 
of earthly cement, when this evening I shall be no more ; I pity 
these walls which are being riven, and the wrinkles which are 
crowding on my brow, I do not count them ! Before these flowers 
are withered, my hair, perhaps, may have fallen ; before the ap- 
proaching frosts of winter have riven these stones asunder, mv 
heart may be for ever frozen in the tomb. What is the life of 
man, of which every moment is counted, knowing that the last 
is coming near, and that he cannot escape it ? These walls, these 



226 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

festoons of ivy, these lime trees with the hops climbing up them, 

these pointed gables which seem to wish to reach the heavens, 

and which the moonlight moisture is destroying, are all these 

dreaming of destruction ? Do all these objects hear the pendulum 

of the timepiece ? is it for them its pitiless voice measures and counts 

the time ? There is but thyself here, man of sorrow, creature so 

ephemeral and plaintive, who knows what time it is ; thou alone 

understandest that mournful voice which issues from the bell and 

parts thy life into minute portions without hindrance or delay. 

Go, take thy stick and journey on, thou mayest return and find 

the house still standing — such as it is, it will outlast thee, years 

are yet needed to overthrow it, and a gust of wind may sweep thee 

away to-morrow. 

******* 

Yesterday night a great disturbance troubled my sleep ; 
the bell was rung as though they intended to break it, they 
knocked at the door as though they would have broken it in ; at 
last, across the wicket, they cried out, just as they do in 
a play, " Open, in the king's name.'* This time I felt no fear, 
what can a man fear when he has a regular passport in his pocket ? 
The gendarmes found mine orthodox, and the rays of light which 
had been sometimes seen in the windows of this deserted house, 
the pythagorean dinner which was passed through the wicket 
every day, had been a great subject of alarm and scandal to some 
of the neighbours. -At first from the light I had been taken for 
a ghost ; but the dinner, although revealing my material exist- 
ence, had given me the air of a conspirator. This morning I was 
obliged to go and give an account of myself to the magistrates. 
My innocence was soon recognized, but I learned on the road, 
that the state of affairs in France had been entirely changed during 
my retreat. The explosion of an Infernal Machine, with results 
fatal enough in themselves, has given despotism pretended rights 
over the purest and most peaceable of our brethren ; and acts of 
ferocity may now be expected from the insolent power which calls 
itself order and justice. So be it ! Franz, life is life ; there must 
be suffering, there must be work to do whilst one is yet living. 
Will a disaster more or less overcome us ? Man is free by the will 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 227 

of God ; the body may be enchained and perish, but the moral na- 
ture of man cannot be reduced to slavery. They say there will be 
sentences of death and ostracism against our friends ; we ourselves 
are nonentities in politics, but we are the children of those at whom 
they aim. I know whom you would follow either to the scaffold or 
into exile, and you know for whom I would do the same. Thus, 
perhaps, we may again see each other, Franz, not as happy tra- 
vellers, no longer as merry artists in the laughing valleys of 
Switzerland, or in the concert halls, or in the cheerful garret in 
Paris, but perhaps, on the other side of the ocean, or in a prison, 
or at the foot of a scaffold ; for it is easy to partake the fate of 
those we love when we really wish to do so. However weak and 
obscure one may be, one may win death or chains from the com- 
passion even of an enemy. They wish to make martyrs, say they ? 
God be thanked ! then our cause is gained. Good day, my dear 
Franz, let us be gay ; those are no longer times of sorrow when 
we can devote ourselves for others, or die for a principle. What 
can they take from us, from us who have never asked anything 
from the world ? Have we any foolish ambition to cure ourselves 
of ? Any selfish greed for which to suffer death ! Unhappy are 
those who have large possessions, they can produce no effect upon 
those who have nothing. Can they take us away early from each 
other ? Can they hinder either our living for our brethren or dying 

with them ? 

Whilst I was out, my friend and host of the deserted mansion 
returned from the country. He has had the grass in the 
court-yard mown, the vine has been cut, the windows opened, 
the daylight and the flies may enter now, the house is in order, 
according to him ; according to me it is ruined. These mutilations, 
this Vandalism, are they a presage of what is about to happen in 
France ? Let me go and see. I depart. Where am I going ? I know 
not 5 there where some of ours may have need of one, who him- 
self has need of no one, if it be not God ! I have had news of 
you in a letter from Puzzi. You have a mother-of-pearl piano ; 
you sit near the window and play upon it, opposite the lake, and 
the sublime snows of Mount Blanc. Franz, this is good and 
beautiful, your life is a pure and noble one ; but if our saints are 



228 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

persecuted, you will quit the lake and the glacier and the mother- 
of-pearl piano, as I quit Lavater, the verdant ivy and the deserted 
house, and you will take up the traveller's staff and the pilgrim's 
scrip, as I do at the present moment whilst sending you an em- 
brace, and saying to you, adieu, my brother, and hail to our next 
meeting. 



LETTER VIII. 

LE PRINCE. 



" * For, in short, of what use are we ?' said he, sinking on a 
stone bench in front of the chateau ; • What noble employment 
do we make of our faculties ? Who will be the better for our pas- 
sage through life ?' 

" ' We are of use/ said I, seating myself beside him, ' to do 
no harm. The birds of the field make no projects one for 
the other ; each of them watches over its own brood. The hand 
of God protects and feeds them/ 

" ■ Cease poet,' replied he ; ' I am sad, not melancholy ; I can- 
not play with my grief, and the tears that I shed fall on an arid 
desert. Dost thou not understand what virtue is ? Is it a stagnant 
pool where the very reeds are rotting, or is it rather an impetuous 
stream that foams and hurries on its course incessantly, to give 
life and moisture to unknown shores ? Is it a diamond, whose 
brilliancy the flint is to entomb in the bowels of the earth, or is it 
rather a light that should shoot upwards like a volcano, and cast 
the magnificence of its splendour over the whole world ?' 

" ' Virtue is, perhaps, neither of all these/ said I ; ' neither 
the sepultured diamond nor the torpid pool, and still less the over- 
flowing river, or the devouring lava. I have seen the Rhone pre- 
cipitate its impetuous wave at the foot of the Alps. Its banks 
were unceasingly despoiled by its impatience, the herbage had not 
time to grow, to blossom ; the trees were borne away ere they had 



' LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 229 

acquired strength to resist the shock, and the shepherds and their 
flocks fled to the mountains. All this tract was but a long desert 
of sand, rock, and stunted osier thickets, where the crane, perched 
on one of its sinewy legs, feared to rest the entire night. But I 
have seen, not far from thence, rivulets noiselessly stealing from 
the bosom of some secret grotto, and gently spreading over the 
neighbouring pastures that were drinking in their limpid streams. 
Balmy plants sprang up from the very bosom of the peaceful 
flood, and the nest of the water-bird hung over its crystal mirror, 
and its little ones gazing on themselves, fluttered their pinions, 
and thought they beheld the arrival of their mother. Virtue, bear 
in mind, is not genius, it is goodness !' 

" * You deceive yourself,' cried he ; 'it is both one and the 
other. What is goodness without enthusiasm ? What is intellect 
without sensibility ? You are good, and I am an enthusiast ; be- 
lieve me, we are neither of us virtuous.' 

" * Well ! let us be contented/ said I with a sigh, ■ that we are 
not dangerous. Look at this palace, think on those who inhabit 
it, and tell me if you are not reconciled with yourself ?' 

" ' Hideous consolation !' replied he, in a tone that affected me 
deeply. ' What ! because there are serpents and jackals, am I to 
congratulate myself on being a tortoise ! No, oh my God ! thou 
hast not created me for inertness, and the more vice is prowling 
and yelping around me, the more I yearn to extend my wings and 
pounce on these vile animals with an eagle's beak. What mean 
you by your gentle streams and secret grottoes ? Do you imagine 
that virtue is like those poisons that become wholesome in small 
portions ? Think you that twelve good men, vowed to obscurity, 
and confined to the narrow limits of a retired life, are more useful 
than one pious man who journeys and who exhorts ? The times of 
the patriarchs are past. Let the apostles arise and make them- 
selves seen and heard.' 

" ' Patience ! patience !' said I ; 'the apostles are on their way ; 
they are coming by different routes and in small parties ; they are 
called by various names, and are clothed in divers colours. The 
most fervent amongst them, perhaps, because they have been the 
most tried, are now chanting by the shores of the Red Sea, as 



230 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

heretofore in the gloomy caverns of the mountains of Dauphine, 
their simple and sublime canticles 

Great God ! thy children worship thee, 
Patience and strength their aim will be ! 

What matter their divisions, their errors, their reverses, and their 
faults!' They calmly answer: ' We shall die, for we are men. 
But ideas perish not, and that which we have cast into the world 
will survive us. The world treats us as fools, ridicule assaults us, 
the shouts of the people pursue us, outrages and stones are show- 
ered upon us, the most hideous calumnies have wounded our souls, 
half of our brethren have fled dismayed, misery devours us, each day 
our feeble flock decreases, and perhaps, not one will remain on 
foot to hail from afar the horizon of the promised land. But we 
have sown in the universe of mind a word of truth which will 
germinate. Calm and satisfied, shall we die on the sands of the 
desert, as that people of God, who, covered with their bones the 
limitless plains of Arabia, and whose new generation arrived, fresh 
and youthful, at the green hills of Canaan.' Are these the words 
of a fool ? And the priest, who, in the solitude of his cell, one 
morning, crossed his arms on his breast, and rising up in the 
midst of his prayer with face and eyes raised to heaven, cried with 
a loud voice ; ' Christ ! chaste love ! holy pride ! patience ! cour- 
age ! liberty ! virtue !' were these priestly words ? The walls of 
his cell trembled at them, and the angels in heaven, moved by 
them, cried : ' all powerful God ! a brilliant flame has just shot 
upwards from that exhausted world. We have beheld, and lo ! 
the light traverses immensity, and comes to expire at thy feet ; 
abandon not yet this w T orld, O merciful God ! for at times there 
issues thence a ray that may rekindle the sun when its atmos- 
phere is murky ; feeble cries, dispersed sounds, complaints, aspira- 
tions, from time to time, pierce the sombre cloud that envelopes it, 
and those remote voices which ascend even here, attest that virtue 
is not extinct in the heart of unfortunate man.' Thus speak the 
angels, and be sure, oh my friend, that not one of our good inten- 
tions is lost. God sees them, he hears the most humble prayer, 
and at the hour that we are speaking, these stars that look down 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 231 

on us and hear us, repeat the words of thy suffering, and re- 
count the virtuous anguish of thy soul/ 

" ' O my friend,' cried he, throwing himself into my arms ; 
' Why art thou not always thus ? Why so many days of apathy 
or of bitterness ? Why so many hours of sarcasm or disdain ?' 

?* ' Because I am a man of weak health and of a weak head/ 
said I ; ' subject to spasms and megrims. God pardon me for 
being unjust and ungrateful at such hours. The reproaches that 
I address to heaven, and the hatred that I feel towards men, re- 
coil on my own heart like a wave of corroding bile, the purity of 
the stars is not tarnished by it, and Providence is not moved. 
Fatigue brings about the return of resignation, and once or twice 
a month it happens, that between fits of anger and imbecility, I 
feel myself in a good and calm disposition in which I can accept 
and pray/ 

" Well, when thy soul attains these hours of calmness and con- 
solation/ cried my friend ; ' run and shut thee in thy garret, take 
the pen and write. Write with thy tears, with thy heart's blood, 
and be silent at other times. When thou sufferest, come with us, 
go not alone below to pace the length of those humid grottoes 
by moonlight ; light not thy lamp at midnight, and do not stay in 
the dawning morn with thy elbows rooted to the table, and thy 
face buried in thy hands. Tell us no more that there are epochs 
when the good man should tie his hands and his feet, that he 
may not act. Tell us not that Simeon Stylites was a saint, and 
admit that he was a fool. Tell us not that virtue is like the chas- 
tity of vestals, and that it must be interred alive to purify it. 
Affect not this tranquil indifference and this voluntary inertness, 
which ill conceal the energies that distract thee 5 or if thou sayest 
all this, say it only to us, who will endeavour to combat thee ; say 
it only to me, I will weep with thee and shall suffer less in not 
suffering alone/ 

" ' 1 pressed the hand of my friend/ and said to him after a 
moment's emotion ; ' Do not think, however, that my individual 
indolence makes me counsel repose to my ardent friends. When 
we can prevent a crime, it is cowardice to wash our hands of it as 
Pilate did 5 but when, as is our case, we are lost in the vulgar 9 



232 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

mass, reason," and perhaps, conscience, commands us to remain 
there. Let him who feels himself invested with a divine mis- 
sion leave the ranks ; God calls him, God will support him. 
He will guide his difficult way through the midst of dangers ; 
in the thickest darkness he will light the torch of wisdom. 
But tell me how many Christs are born, thinkest thou in a 
century ? Art not thou also, like myself, startled and indignant at 
the enormous number of redeemers and legislators who pretend to 
the throne of the moral world ? Instead of seeking a guide, and 
listening to those whose words are inspired, the whole human 
race aims at the professor's chair or the tribune. All wish to teach, 
all think they speak better and know more than those who have 
preceded them. The contemptible murmuring which is agitating • 
our age, is but an echo of empty words and sonorous declamation, 
where the mind and heart may seek in vain for a ray of warmth 
and light. Truth discouraged and misunderstood, sinks into 
inertia, or hides itself in souls worthy to receive it. Prophets are 
no more, disciples are no more. The people gone astray are 
greater declaimers than the messengers of God. All the elements 
of strength and activity march onwards in disorder, and stop 
paralyzed in the universal shock. We shall arrive, thou sayest ; 
but when, in what hour ? Well let us be resigned, let us wait ! To 
clear a way for ourselves through this blind and impotent multitude 
with fire tmd sword, would make a massacre and conflagration 
around us. Dost thou not know that r How many disasters must one 
not go through to establish a doubtful success ! how many crimes 
must one not commit towards society, in order to make it accept a 
benefit! This is not a fit task for rustics like ourselves, my friend ! 
and when I see a superior man opening his lips to speak, or raising 
his arm to act, I tremble and question him by a severe and dis- 
trustful glance, w T hich seeks to penetrate into the depths of his 
conscience. Oh God ! what austere reflections, what purifying 
proofs ought one not to go through to prepare for playing any 
part upon the theatre of the world ! What ought one not to 
have studied, what must one not have felt ! Stop, let us plant in 
our gardens the twenty-seven varieties of dahlias, and study the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 233 

habits of insects. Let us not venture our intelligence farther than 
this, for the conscience within us, is perhaps, not strong enough to 
rule over our imagination. Let us content ourselves with being up- 
right in this retired life where uprightness is easy. Let us be pure, 
since everything is favourable to it in the bosom of our families, under 
our rustic roofs. Let us not risk our little cargo of virtue on that 
surging ocean, where so much innocence has perished, where so many 
principles have foundered. Are you not seized with an unconquer- 
able disgust and a secret horror of active life, at sight of this 
chateau, where so many foul projects and secret villanies are for 
ever hatching and brewing in the silence of the night ? Knowest 
thou not that the man who dwells there, has for sixty years been 
playing with nations and crowns on the chess-board of the uni- 
verse ? Who knows, if the first time that man seated himself at 
a table to business, there was not in his mind an honest resolution, 
in his heart a noble sentiment ?' 

'"Never ! ' cried my friend/ profane not honesty by such a thought ; 
that cat-like lip closed on its fellow, large and overhanging as that 
of a satyr, a mixture of dissimulation and lasciviousness ; those soft 
and rounded features, the indication of suppleness of character, the 
scornful fold on that determined brow, the arrogant nose and the 
reptile eye, so many contrasts in a human physiognomy, reveal a man 
born for great vices, and petty actions. Never has that heartfelt the 
warmth of a generous emotion, never has an idea of loyalty traversed 
that scheming brain. This man is an exception in nature, a mon- 
strosity so rare, that the human race while contemning him, has 
watched him with imbecile admiration ; I defy you to bend before 
the most wonderful of his talents ! Let us invoke the God of 
honest men, the God that blesseth simple hearts/ 

Here my friend stopped with an air of ironical joy, and after some 
moments silence : — ' When I think of the ic^as which occupy us in 
this place, almost under the very windows of the greatest scoundrel 
in the universe, us poor children of solitude, whose dreams, whose 
cares all tend towards endeavouring to make our humble goodness 
contagious, I feel inclined to turn ourselves into a jest, for here 
are we weeping with tenderness over the humanity which knows 



234 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

us not, and who would repulse our teachings, whilst it bows and 
humbles itself before the intellectual power of those by whom it is 
detested and despised. Look at the immovable and colourless 
aspect of this old palace ! listen and look ; all is dull and silent ; 
it might be taken for a cemetery. And yet fifty people at least 
inhabit it. Some few windows are faintly lighted, but no noise 
betrays the presence of the master, and his friends, nor of his suite. 
What order, what respect, what dullness, in his little empire ! 
The doors open and shut without a sound, the servants' steps wake 
not an echo under this mysterious roof, their service seems ren- 
dered by enchantment. Look at that window more brilliant than 
the others, through which you may catch an uncertain glimpse of a 
white statue ; that is the drawing-room. Intrepid hunters, artists, 
dazzling women, fashionable men, all that France has most exqui- 
site in elegance and grace, are united there. Does one hear a 
song, a laugh, a single burst of voice attesting the presence of 
man ? I wager that they avoid even looking at one another, fear- 
ing to let a thought escape under this roof, where all is silence, 
mystery, and secret terror. 

Not a valet dares to sneeze, not a dog knows how to bark. 
Does it not even seem as though the atmosphere around this 
Moorish tower were more sonorous than elsewhere. Has the 
Chatelain imposed silence upon the evening breeze and the mur- 
muring waters ? Perhaps he has had ears opened in all his walls 
like Dionysius in his Latomia?, that he may lay hold of an opinion 
as it passes by, and make it serve his puerile and mysterious pro- 
jects. Hark, I think I hear the sound of a carriage upon the 
gravel of the court-yard. It is the master returning, eleven has 
just struck upon the castle clock. No life is more regular, no 
regimen more strictly observed, no existence cherished with more 
masterly care than that of this octogenarian fox. Go and ask 
him if he believes himself necessary to the preservation of the 
human race, that he cares for his own life so unceasingly ? Go and 
tell him that twenty times a day you are seized with the wish 
to blow your brains out, because you fear being or remaining 
useless, because you are afraid of a life without active virtue ; and 
you will see him smile with more contempt than a prostitute 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 235 

would at hearing some pious virgin confess the lukewarmness of her 
prayers, or her yawning during divine service. Ask in what devo- 
tion, in what good actions his day is occupied; his people will tell 
you that he rises at eleven, and remains four hours at his toilette, 
(time lost, doubtless, in endeavouring to give some appearance 
of life to that marble visage, which is more petrified by dissimu- 
lation and utter want of soul than even by old age). At three 
o'clock, they will tell you, the prince gets into his carriage with 
his physician, and goes for his ride through the unfrequented 
alleys of his immense warren. At five o'clock, the most nourish- 
ing and learned dinner is served up that all France can furnish. 
His cook is, in his sphere, a personage as rare, as profound, and 
as admired as himself. After this festival, each course of which 
is announced by the flourish of trumpets, the prince goes a few 
moments to his family, to his little court. Every exquisite word, 
mercifully emanating from his lips, is met by heads bowed 
before him. A canonized saint would not inspire more veneration 
in a community of devotees. As night sets in, the prince again 
enters his carriage, and takes a second drive with his physician. 
Now you hear him return, and his window is now lighted in 
that distant apartment which, when he is absent, is guarded by 
his lackeys with such an affectation of solemn mystery. Now 
he is going to work until fixe in the morning. To work !. . . . 
Oh moon, delay thy rising ! hide thy timid rays behind the dark 
horizon of the forest ! River, slacken thy course, already so 
slow, so languid. Leaves, tremble not upon the trees, grass- 
hoppers of the meadows, lizards on the wall, snakes in the 
thickets, move not in the grass, nor disturb the festoons of ivy 
and spleenwort, nor make the dry leaves and brittle stalks of the 
nettle and the poppy rustle ! Nature ! make thyself dumb and 
motionless as the stone of the sepulchre ; the genius of man 
is awake, his power ought to alarm and strike thee with respect ; 
the most skilful and most important of the princes of this earth 
is actually going to bend over a table, by the light of a lamp, 
and from the depths of his cabinet, like Jupiter from the heights 
of Olympus, he is going to move the world -with the frowning of 
his brow ! 

Trifles, human vanities ! haughty puerilities, lofty nothings ! 

Q 



236 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

What has this wonderful man produced during sixty years of 
laborious nights, and toil without relaxation ? What have all 
the representatives of all the powers of the earth had to do in 
his cabinet ? What important services have all the sovereigns 
who have possessed and lost the crown of France during the 
last fifty years received from him? Why does the honeyed 
glance of this man always inspire such an inconceivable terror ? 
Why have all obstacles been smoothed under his feet ? What 
revolutions has he caused or paralysed ? what sanguinary wars, 
public calamities, or scandalous exactions has he prevented ? 
He has then been, very necessary, this voluptuous hypocrite, to 
all our kings, from the haughty conqueror to the narrow-minded 
bigot, that they have imposed upon us the shame, the scandal 
of his elevation ! Napoleon, in his contempt, characterized him 
at once by a soldier's metaphor and energetic cynicism ; and 
Charles X., in his orthodox days, spoke well in saying of him, 
" Nevertheless, he is but a married priest /" Has he saved them 
from their terrible downfals, these masters at once flattered and 
betrayed by him ? Where are his benefits ? where are his 
works? No one knows, no one can, no one ought nor will de- 
clare what titles this indispensable statesman possessed to power 
and glory ; his most brilliant acts are hidden by impenetrable 
clouds, his genius is entirely in silence and cunning. What 
shameless turpitudes are covered by the cloak of diplomacy? 
Canst thou conceive this manner of governing a people without 
permitting them to interfere in the carrying on of their own 
affj irs, or even to foresee the future which is prepared for them? 
These are the stewards and agents to whom our fortunes and 
our lives are entrusted without consulting us ! We are not al- 
lowed to revise their acts nor question their intentions. Grave 
mysteries are agitated over our heads, but so distant and so high 
are they, that our eyes cannot reach them. We serve as the 
stake in the hands of invisible players : silent spectres who smile 
majestically whilst they inscribe our destinies in their memoran- 
dum books. 

Then what sayest thou, cried I, of the imbecility of a nation 
which bears with this unworthy medley, and which allows these 
infamous contracts with which it is even unacquainted, to be 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 237 

sealed with its name, its honour, and its blood ? Does it not 
make thee eager to enter on the political stage in thy turn ? 

" The more degraded my fellow-beings are," answered he, 
" the more do I wish to elevate them. I am discouraged for 
them. Let me indulge my indignation against this impenetrable 
man who made use of us like pieces on his chess-board, and 
who has not willed to devote his power to our progress. Let 
me curse this enemy of the human race, who has possessed the 
world merely to smuggle a fortune, to satisfy his vices, and to 
impose a degrading esteem for his iniquitous talents upon his 
despoiled dupes. The benefactors of humanity die in exile or 
on the cross. And thou ! old and satiated vulture, thou wilt 
die easily and regretfully on thy couch ! As death crowns all 
men with a complaisant halo, thy baseness and thy vices will 
quickly be forgotten ; thy talents and seductive powers alone 
will be remembered. Impostor ! scourge whom the master of 
the universe cast upon the earth like another limping Vulcan, 
to forge unknown weapons in the depths of inaccessible caverns, 
thou wilt have nothing to say at the great day of judgment. 
Thou wilt not even be interrogated. The Creator, who has re- 
fused thee a soul, will require no account of thy sentiments and 
thy passions." 

" I think," interrupted I, " and am convinced that in certain 
men the heart is so weak, so lethargic, and so sterile, that no affec- 
tion can germinate therein. They seem to experience attachments 
more durable than others, and their relations are in fact solidly 
established. Egotism, personal interest have created them, and 
they are kept up by habit and necessity. Esteeming nothing, 
such men never meet with the deceptions which embitter us 
poor dreamers, who cannot love without clothing the object of 
our affection with an ideal grandeur. 

We often deceive ourselves, and often do we crush the object 
we have once caressed with our anger. But honour, faith in 
oaths, scruples of probity, all these in diplomatic eyes are but 
the springs proper to give motion to certain wheels known to 
himself alone, he knows how to set them moving apropos, and to 
make them serve unconsciously for the accomplishment of some 
work of iniquity whose secret he alone possesses. That is called 

Q 2 



238 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

farsightedness in policy. If an enlightened man stoop to the 
immorality of the diplomatist, if he become supple in his self- 
corruption, each day he is more valued by his master, for, in 
diplomacy, that which is most useful is most estimable. Words 
have another sense, principles another aspect, sentiments another 
form in this world than in our own. For the rest, it is not so diffi- 
cult as one thinks to attain the sublimity of this impure science ; 
it is necessary to tread one's conscience under foot, and to inter- 
pret all the principles of universal morality in their directly op- 
posite sense. To many, it is true, this would be impossible in 
practice ; but if we two wished to act a scene for the amusement 
of our friends, I wager that with a little boldness and a certain set 
of words, adroitly chosen, prudently intelligible, and those words 
of half-meaning, of which the French language offers so many, 
we could dress up our own impudent sophisms very decently 9 
and assume upon the theatre the airs of statesmen without much 
study and without the least invention. Our friends would un- 
derstand us and laugh, but if some ignorant fellow should come 
to hear us, be sure that he would take us for very great men ? 
and that he would return home, shaken, surprised, full of doubt, 
with an invalid and half paralysed conscience, with all his bad 
instincts awakened, trembling with the hope of some permitted 
theft, some excusable injustice, above all with his head stuffed 
with our pretty court phrases, repeating them to his friends, 
teaching them to his children by rote, without perceiving that 
rape, robbery, and assassination are at the end of these elegant 
maxims. Or even, if he were an enlightened booby, Ave should see 
him rubbing his hands, affecting a sardonic smile, a mysterious 
look, and give forth in his private conversation some of our 
gracious precepts of infamy, and then receive as many mysterious 
looks of approbation, as many sardonic smiles of sympathy as 
he has fellow spirits around him. 

I am not revolting against the existence of these elect 
scoundrels whom Providence in its inscrutable designs allows 
to fulfil their mission upon the earth. Fatality acts directly 
upon remarkable men either for good or evil. There is no 
need for it to be occupied with the vulgar herd. They 
obey the impulse of the levers which an invisible hand 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 239 

sets in motion. It is against this impotent and stupid class, 
against this torpid slime which allows itself to be stirred and 
furrowed, producing every thing that is sown in it, without 
knowing why, without asking whether the plant thrust into its 
fat and inert mass be salutary or venomous ; it is against this 
forest of thistles which the wind bows and bends at its will that 
I am indignant ; I, who wish to remain in the crowd, and who 
cannot support its heaviness, its murmurs, and its inaptitude. 
It is against these two-footed sheep who gaze at statesmen in 
stolid stupefaction, and astonished at seeing themselves so 
adroitly shorn, look at each other and say : What clever men 
these are ! and hew cleverly we are shorn ! Blockheads as ye 
are ! even your hogs cry out when they feel the butcher's knife. 
At this moment a window was opened ; it was in the prince's 
apartment. " How long has a corpse felt the heat ?" said my 
friend, lowering his voice ; " since when has a marble statue 
need of breathing the evening air? Whose white heads are 
those which lean forth to look at the moon ?" Those two old 
men are the prince and his. . . . what shall I say ? for I will 
not profane the name of friend upon which M. de M**** 
prides himself before the servants and subalterns. Doubtless 
he would not permit himself to take this title in the Master's 
presence, all words which represent sentiments must seem laugh- 
able to him. Using a term of their trade, 1 shall call M. 
de M**** the prince's attache, although his functions are 
confined to admire and write in an album every phrase which 
has issued from this incomparable mouth for forty years. Here 
is one of these phrases, for instance, one which we can com- 
ment upon, if thou wilt, at the next carnival, between two screens, 
appropriately costumed, with grave faces, sticks up our sleeves, and 
a board up our backs, to prevent all inconsiderate movements of 
the body or arms ; with plaster masks, and the scene shall com- 
mence with these memorable historical words : — "Mistrust our first 
impulses, and never yield to them without examination, for they are 
almost always good." Who could have believed that scoundrelism, 
erected into a doctrine of good society, which in itself is striking 
enough, should also have its commonplace and its pedantry ? 



940 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

But listen to that hoarse cry ; which of these two sinister philo- 
sophers is going to give up the ghost ? No, I am deceived, it 
is the cry of the owl in the wood. It is well, chant yet louder, 
bird of misfortune, herald 6f the grave !. . . . Ah ! monseigneur, 
here at least is a voice you cannot smother in the throat of the 
insolent crier. Do you hear the unfeeling chorus of the cemetery 
which respecteth nothing, and which dares to proclaim even to 
a man like yourself, that all men must die, without adding the 
" almost" of the Court Preacher ? 

" Your indignation is bitter, and your anger is cruel,' ' said I ; 
" if this man could hear us, this is how I should address him, — 
May God prolong thy days, unhappy old man ! Meteor soon to 
pass away into eternal night ! light that destiny has thrown on 
the world, not to lead men towards good, but to bewilder them in 
an endless labyrinth of intrigue and ambition ! In its inscrutable 
designs, Heaven has refused thee that mysterious emanation 
that men call a soul ; — faint but pure reflection of the Divinity, 
beam that sometimes gladdens our eyes and yields us a glimpse 
of immortal hope, mild and gentle glow, that from time to time 
reanimates our dejected spirits ; love sublime and undefined ; 
holy emotion that make3 us yearn for good with delicious tears ; 
religious terror that makes us hate ill with energetic palpitations ! 
Being without a name ! thou wast furnished with an immense 
brain, and with keen and delicate senses ; the absence of that 
divine and unknown something that makes us men, has made 
thee greater than the first amongst us, and less than the lowest 
of all. Infirm, thou didst step over healthy and robust men, 
the most vigorous virtue, the finest organisation before thee was 
nought but a fragile reed ; thou wast master over beings more 
noble than thyself ; that which was wanting in thee of their 
greatness made thine own ; and now thou art on the brink of a 
tomb, that will be for thee hollow and cold as thine own bosom 
of putrefaction. Beyond this gaping vault there is nothing for 
thee, nothing of hope perchance, not even the desire of another 
life ! Miserable man ! the horror of that moment will be such 
as to expiate perhaps all the ills thou hast done. Thy approach 
was fatal, it is said thy glance fascinated like the viper's ; thy 
breath was as the frost of an April morning, withering the buds 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 241 

and flowers and scattering them at the foot of the saddened 
trees ; thy voice scared hope and candour from the face of those 
who approached thee. Living problem ! enigma of humanity ! how 
many blossoms hast thou stripped ? How much holy faith and 
pleasant imagining hast thou trampled on ? How many recreants 
hast thou made ? How many consciences hast thou falsified or 
destroyed ? Yet, if the pleasures of thy declining years are 
limited to the satisfaction of an over-fed vanity, to the uncertain 
enjoyments of a fastidious stomach, eat, old man, eat, and 
breathe the odour of incense mixed with that of thy viands. 
Who can envy thee thy lot and wish thee a worse ? For our- 
selves, who pity thee as much for having lived as for having to 
die, we will pray that at thy death-bed the farewells of thy 
family, the tears of some faithful servant, may not awaken in 
thee an emotion of sensibility or unknown affection, that no 
spark may be struck from the flint that serves thee for a heart. 
We will pray, that at the close thou mayest be extinguished 
without ever having been warmed by the beams of that sun 
which is instinct with love, that thine eye may not be moistened, 
that thy pulse may not beat, that thou mayest not feel the flutter 
that love, hope, regret, or grief excites in us, that tbou mayest 
go and inhabit the damp bosom of the earth without having felt 
at its surface the warmth of vegetation and the sensation of life, 
that at the moment of passing into eternal nothingness thou 
mayest not feel the tortures of despair at beholding the souls 
that thou didst scornfully disown hovering above thee, immortal 
essences that thou didst boast of having crushed under thy 
haughty feet, and who will be ascending to heaven when thine 
own will pass away like empty breath ; we shall beseech that at 
that hour thy last word may not be a reproach to the God in 
whom thou belie vest not !" 

A light figure crossed the angle of the lawn, and we saw her 
mount the exterior stair-case of the turret towards the other ex- 
tremity of the castle. " Is that," said my friend, " the spirit of 
some good man evoked by thee come to rejoice in the clear 
moonlight in order to drive the impious one to despair?" "No, 
that spirit, if it is one, inhabits a beautiful body." "Ah ! I un- 
derstand," he replied, "it is the duchess ! they say that ". . . . 



242 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

44 Do not repeat that,'' interrupted I ; " spare these hideous pic- 
tures and horrible suspicions to my imagination. This old man 
may have conceived the thought of such a profanation, but this 
woman is too lovely, it is impossible. If vile debauchery or 
sordid avarice inhabit such a beautiful being, of so pure a form, 
let me be ignorant of it, let me deny it. We are simple vil- 
lagers, men without gall. My friend, let us not so easily taint 
all that we still possess of soft and smiling emotions in our souls. 
Tell not to our heart what our reason suspects ; let our dazzled 
eyes command its sympathy. You are too charming, beautiful 
duchess, not to be pure and good." " Very well ! be it so, 
you are as good as you are beautiful, beautiful duchess," cried 
my friend, smiling ; "I easily persuaded myself of this when I 
saw you pass this morning in the park. I was lying on the 
grass, under the trees glistening in the sun ; through the trans- 
parent autumn foliage you seemed to scatter golden rays through 
the heated and moist south wind. In your white drapery, like 
a young maiden, or nymph of Diana, you passed by, borne along 
by a spirited horse, in a light and elegant tilbury. Your hair 
floated over your candid brow ; and from your large black eyes, 
(the most beautiful eyes in France, they say) bright glances 
flashed ; I knew not then that you were a duchess, I saw only a 
bewitching woman. I wished to run along your path to see 
you for a longer time. But since then, I have entered your 
chamber, and that portrait, placed between the curtains of your 
bed. ..." 

"That alone," said I, "would prevent me from mal-interpreting 
the ingenuous sentiment of an almost filial gratitude for benefits 
received and a legitimate protection. No, no, corruption cannot 
exist with such a sweet and sparkling glance, with such a mar- 
vellous freshness of beauty, with such a frank, proud bearing, and 
with so harmonious a voice, and such graceful manners. I have 
seen her busy herself about a sick child, beauty and good- 
ness in a woman sustain each other ! The God of good and 
pure hearts, which thou wert invoking just now, I invoke also 
to prevent me from learning that which I wish not to believe, 
vice under such a lovely outside, impure insects in the calyx of 
of such a balmy flower ! No, Paul, let us return to the village 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 243 

with this lovely apparition of the duchess in our memory ; and 
if we ever write a romance of chivalry, let us recall her form, her 
tresses, her beautiful teeth, her sweet looks, and the sunshine of 
the park at noon." 

We quitted our seats and my friend, returning to his first idea, 
said to me : " Whence comes it then that men (and I among 
the first in spite of myself) are so jealous of the gifts of intel- 
lect ? Wherefore do these alone obtain immortal crowns without 
the aid of any one virtue, whilst the purest honesty and the 
mildest goodness remain buried in forgetfulness unless accom- 
panied by genius or talent ? Admit that this is grievous, and 
that it may confirm wavering souls in the faith that virtue is 
labour lost here below.' 

" If thou considerest it as a labour," I replied, " it is indeed a 
labour lost. But is it not a mild necessity, a condition of exis- 
tence in hearts that have early and sincerely embraced it ? Men 
pay it with ingratitude because men are grovelling, credulous, 
and indolent, because the charms of curiosity have more power 
over them than the feeling of gratitude and the love of truth, 
but in serving mankind, is it not from God alone that we must 
look for a reward ? To labour for men, with the sole end of being 
carried in triumph, is to act with a view to one's own vanity, 
and that kind of emulation will be extinguished and lost at the 
first sight that it encounters. Let us never expect any thing 
for ourselves when we enter on this barren route of devotedness. 
Let us endeavour to acquire sufficient sensibility to weep and to 
rejoice over our reverses and our successes alone. May our 
own heart suffice for us, and may God strengthen and renew it 
when it begins to fail !" 

" 'And yet I confess," said my friend, pursuing the threads of 
his reverie, " that I cannot keep myself from loving this Bona- 
parte, that scourge of the first order, before whose shade all the 
secondary scourges laid in the dust by him appear thencefor- 
wards so petty and so insignificant. He was a great killer of 
men, but a great builder and bold architect of societies, and a con- 
queror alas ! yes, but a legislator also ! Does not that repair the 
evils of destruction ? Is not to make laws a far greater good than 
to kill men is a great ill ? I seem to behold a great cultivator, and 



244 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

beneficent divinity, (Bacchus arriving in India, or Ceres landing 
in Sicily), armed with fire and sword clearing the soil, piercing 
the mountains, turning up the moors, burning the forests and 
sowing in the ashes and in the loosened soil new plants destined 
for new r men, the vine and the grain, inexhaustible benefits for 
inexhaustible generations." 

" ' It is not proved,' I replied ' that these laws are lasting. But 
admitting that, I cannot love the man whom God has used as a 
hammer to give us a new form. Like others, I was fascinated 
in my childhood by the force and activity of this destructive 
machine, on whom we confer the title of a great man, neither 
more nor less than upon Jesus or Moses. Since our human 
language knows not how to distinguish the benefactors of hu- 
manity from its scourges, since the epithet good is almost a term 
of contempt, and the same appellation great is applied to a 
painter, a legislator, a warrior, a musician, a god or an actor, a 
diplomatist, or a poet, an emperor, or a monk, it is quite natural 
that children, women, and the ignorant populace should make a 
mistake, and exclaim " Vive Napoleon" in 1810 with as much 
enthusiasm as at Venice they now cry " Vive the Patriarch ! 
The one made widows and orphans, he was a powerful monarch. 
The other nourished the widow and the orphan, he was an 
humble priest. Nevertheless both are great men.' 

" ' In fact,' replied my friend, ' the blind enthusiasm which 
without any distinction crowns genius, charity, or talent, resem- 
bles an unhealthy excitement rather than a reasonable feeling.' 

" • But you are aware that there would be much fewer great 
men in the world if the title were granted only to good men ?' 

" ' I know it ; but call them what you please, these are the only 
men whom I esteem, for whom I have any passionate enthusiasm, 
and whom I would wish to register in the calendar of human 
greatness ; I should enrol there the humblest, the most ignorant, 
from the Abbe de Saint Pierre, with his system of universal 
peace, to Father Enfantin with his ridiculous dress and fantastic 
Utopia, all those who to some abilities have joined conscientious 
studies, patient reflections, sacrifices, or labours destined to 
render men better and less wretched. I should be indulgent to 
their errors, to the degradation of our condition more or less 
prominent in them, I should forgive them many faults, as was 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 245 

done to Magdalen if they had loved much. But those whose 
intent is cold and haughty, those lofty men who build for their 
own glory and not for our happiness, those legislators who incar- 
nadine the world and oppress the people to gain an extended 
territory and erect immense edifices, who are moved neither by 
the tears of women, nor the starvation of the aged, nor the fatal 
ignorance in which the children are reared : those men who seek 
nothing but their personal grandeur, who fancy they have made 
a nation great because they have made it active, ambitious, and 
vain as themselves, I disown them, I erase them from my tablet. 
I inscribe our cure* in place of Napoleon.' 

" ' As you will,' replied my friend, who was no longer listen- 
ing. The night was so beautiful that its contemplation en- 
grossed me also, flashes of lightning from time to time blanched 
the horizon and shed their pale light on the dark outlines of the 
forests that stretched along the hills. The air was fresh and 
penetrating without being cold. This spot is one of the most 
beautiful on the earth, and no king possesses a more picturesque 
park, trees of loftier growth or turf of greener hue spread over 
undulations of more fertile land. This fresh and tufted valley is 
an oasis in the midst of the dull plains that surround it and pre- 
vent all suspicion of its presence. In a ravine set round with 
rocks and forests, we suddenly come on royal gardens, in the 
midst of which rises an elegant and poetical Spanish palace that 
from the rocky height reflects itself in the waters of a blue and 
sparkling river. It seems as if we had arrived in a dream at some 
enchanted country that would vanish on awaking, and that in 
fact does vanish in a quarter of an hour when we have tra- 
versed the valley and are pursuing the great south road. Limit- 
less plains, yellow heaths, flat and naked horizons reappear. 
What we have just beheld seems imaginary. 

" He followed the path that leads to the grottoes. The poplars 
of the river stretched over us their tall and slender shadows — 
the deer fled at our approach. We reached these forsaken 
quarries clothed with the richest verdure, whose depths offer a 
scene truly theatrical. ■ Enter this resounding vault,' said my 
friend, 'and sing me thy gloria. I will go and seat myself 
below to catch the echo.' 



246 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

" I did as lie asked and when I finished he came back to me 
repeating the simple words of the hymn — fi Glory to God in the 
highest, and peace on earth to men of good will.'' 

" ' You see/ said I ' the hymn does not say " Glory on earth 
to men of knowledge or intelligence.' ' Repose is the most 
precious gift God has to grant us. God alone can worthily bear 
the burden of glory, and simple men who desire good are greater 
before him than great men who commit evil/ " 



LETTER IX. 
TO MALGACHE. 



15th May, 1836. 

I arrive at home, and do not find you ; but a letter from 
you, dated Marseilles, comes just at this moment. Where are 



you going ? 



From whence we come we nothing know, 
Nor better where we are to go. 



I write to you by the Revue des Deux Mondes, when you 
open it, of course you w T ill be in Algiers. 

The law-suit upon which my future, my honour, my repose, 
and the future and repose of my children depends, I thought 
was honourably concluded. You left me just as I was upon the 
point of returning to the paternal mansion. I am again hunted 
from it, and all the promised engagements are violated. New 
difficulties must be conquered and we must dispute inch by inch 
for a little spot of earth. ... a precious and a sacred spot, where 
the bones of my parents repose under flowers sown by my hand, 
and watered by my tears. So be it, may God's will be fulfilled 
in me. It is not without a feeling of disgust amounting to hor- 
ror that I again take up the struggle of material life ; but I am 
resigned, and preserve a stoical calmness. The role of defend- 
ant is a miserable one to play — It is an entirely passive part, and 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 247 

has no other result than that of exercising one's patience. To 
act is easy, to wait is the most difficult thing in the world. . . . 

Midnight. 

Oh heavenly breath, spirit of man ! oh wonderful, profound, 
and complete operation of the Divinity, render glory to the un- 
known hand who hath created thee. Spark escaped from the 
crucible of life, sublime atom, thou art an image of God ; for 
all his attributes, all his elements are within thee. Thou art 
the infinite emanating from the infinite. Thou art grand as 
the universe, and thy greatest pleasure is to inhabit and wander 
through the unknown 

Of what does the feeble and morose creature complain ? what does 
it desire ? With whom does it find fault ? Why does it roll on the 
earth devouring the dust of life ? Why, assimilating itself to the 
brute, does it demand the enjoyments of the brute ? Why such 
angry roaring, such stupid outcries when its gross wants are not 
satisfied ? Why has it formed to itself a material existence in 
which the holier part is entirely extinguished ? 

Ah ! from thence comes the evil which devours it. Cybele,the 
beneficent nursing mother, has seen her breasts dry up under its 
burning lips. Her chddren, seized upon by fever and vertigo, have 
disputed for her maternal bosom with an unnatural jealousy. 
Some of them have called themselves the elder of the family, the 
princes of the earth ; and new races have sprung up from the 
womb of humanity ; exclusive races, pretending to a divine origin 
and a divine right ; whilst they are disowned by God, God who 
had seen them burst forth in the foulness of debauch, and in the 
ordure of cupidity. 

And the earth has been treated like a property, she who had 
once been worshipped as a goddess. She has been turned into 
vile merchandize, her enemies have conquered and divided her. 
.... Her true children, simple hearted men who live according 
to the dictates of nature, have been by degrees restricted within 
narrow bounds, and persecuted until poverty has become a 
crime and a shame, until necessity has made the oppressed the 
enemies of their enemies, and until the just defence of their 
lives has been styled theft and robbery ; patience has been 



248 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

called weakness ; candour, ignorance ; usurpation, glory, power, 
and riches. Thus lying has entered into the heart of man, 
and his understanding has been obscured, so that he no longer 
remembers that he has two natures within. The perishable 
part of man's nature has found the conditions of its existence 
so difficult in the bosom of society, it has drunk from so many 
sources of error, it has created for itself wants so contrary to 
its destination, it has been so troubled and altered, that there 
is no longer in human life time for an intellectual existence. 
In the designs, necessities, and desires of man, all is comprised 
in the power of satisfying the appetites of the flesh, that is to 
to say, in becoming rich. And this is the point at which we 
are arrived, alas ! men less eager for the enjoyments of the 
table, for the splendour of dress, and the amusements of civili- 
zation, than for contemplation and prayer, are now so rare they 
may be numbered. They are despised as madmen, and banished 
from social life ; they are called poets. 

Oh ! unfortunate race, more and more thinly scattered over 
the face of the world ! vestige of our primitive humanity ; 
what hast thou not had to suffer from the active, powerful, 
skilful and cruel race, which now replaces here below the 
creature of God ! The reign of the children of Japhet is gone, 
the men of the present d:iy are literally the children of men. 
When they discover on the brow of one born amongst them- 
selves, some sign of his celestial origin, they hate and maltreat 
him, or at least they amuse themselves with him as with a 
phenomenon, and draw from him no benefit, no enlightenment ; 
it is much if they permit him to sing the wonders of the visible 
creation. Does he seek in the darkness of the intellectual 
world to catch some clue to the labyrinth ? does he try to dis- 
perse the dust of ages of abuse and prejudice, to discover under 
the thick incrustation of habit, some spark from the extinct 
volcano, some pale glimmer of the divine truth ? Thenceforward 
he becomes dangerous ; he is distrusted, fettered, discouraged, 
his conscience insulted, his aims perverted, he is accused of 
corruption and sacrilege, his life is tarnished, the torch extin- 
guished in his trembling grasp — and happy is he if he is not 
loaded with chains as a madman ! 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 249 

******* 

Yes, the poet is unhappy, profoundly unhappy in this social 
life. It is not that he wishes, as they mockingly pretend, that 
it should be reconstructed expressly for him and his inclina- 
tions ; but that he wishes that it should be reformed for its 
own sake and for the designs of God. The poet loves good ; 
he is endowed with a peculiar faculty, the sense of beauty. When 
this development of the faculty of seeing, understanding and 
admiring is merely devoted to exterior objects, he is only an 
artist ; when the intellect goes beyond the sense of the pic- 
turesque, when the soul has eyes like the body, the union of 
these two faculties makes the poet ; for to be truly a poet, one 
must also be an artist and a philosopher. 

This is indeed a magnificent organic combination solely to 
attain to a pensive and solitary happiness ; it is the certain, the 
inevitable qualification for an endless misery in society. 

Society, like man, is composed of two elements, the divine 
and the terrestrial ; this element, more or less pure, more or less 
altered, is found in the laws. These lavvs, however imperfect, 
however incorrect in their formula, are always better than the 
generation they govern. They are the production of the men 
most eminent in wisdom and intelligence.* The human element 
is found in their abuse, in the prejudices, the vices of each gene- 
ration, and since that time, perhaps a fabulous one, of the 
golden age which each poet boasts of as the date of his genea- 
logy, each generation has suffered far more evil than good. 
The unwritten code of custom has had more influence than the 
written code of duty. Chastisements have had no power of 
prevention when custom has been in opposition to law. This 
is the reason why society, always seeking for good in its insti- 
tutions, has always been invaded by evil. The legislator teaches 
and dictates the law, which human nature accepts but does not 
observe. Every man invokes it for his own interest, and forgets 
it in his pleasures. 

The being ^at once disgraced and privileged called a poet, 

* It must be remembered that here we are speaking of those durable laws 
which relate to public morals, and not of tho*e which are made and remade 
every day, relating to the petty material interests of society. 

■ 



250 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

wanders then amongst his fellow men with a profound feeling 
of sadness. As soon as his eyes open to the sun's light, he 
seeks for objects of admiration ; he sees nature eternally young 
and beautiful, and he is seized with a divine energy, and un- 
known delight, but soon inanimate nature no longer suffices for 
him. The true poet loves God passionately and the works of 
God ; it is himself and his fellow men in whom he sees the 
eternal light shine most distinctly. He yearns to find it pure 
and to adore God in man as a sacred flame on a spotless altar. 
His soul aspires, his arms open, and in his need of love, he 
would rend his own breast if he could thereby enclose all the 
objects of his intense desire, of his chaste sympathies ; but 
human deformity, the work of ages of corruption, cannot escape 
his clear sight, his deep contemplation. He penetrates through 
the envelope, he sees perverted souls in beautiful bodies, and 
hearts of clay in statues of gold and marble. Then he suffers, 
he is indignant, he murmurs, he remonstrates. Heaven which 
has given him such a piercing insight, has given to him also, a 
strong and sonorous voice, which imprudently betrays all his 
anguish in complaint and benediction, in prayer and in menace. 
The abuses of the world draw from him cries of distress ; 
the spectacle of hypocrisy burns his eyes as with a heated 
iron; the sufferings of the oppressed animate his courage, and 
courageous sympathies ferment in his soul. The poet raises his 
voice and declares to men the truths that irritate them. 

Thus all this impure race, who shelters itself under a false 
respect for the laws, in order to satisfy its vices in the shade, 
picks up the stones of the wayside to stone the man of truth. 
The Scribes and Pharisees, (a tribe always powerful), prepare 
the scourge, the crown of thorns and the reed, the mocking 
sceptre bequeathed by the hand of Christ to all victims of per- 
secution. The blinded and stupid crowd immolate martyrs for 
the sole pleasure of beholding their sufferings. Jesus on the 
cross is for them nothing more than the exciting spectacle of a 
man struggling in his last agony. 

It is true that from this abyss of turpitude, some just spirits 
will emerge who dare approach the gibbet, and bathe the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 251 

martyr's wounds with their tears. There are also weak but 
sincere men often overcome by the corruptions of the age, but 
often raised again by a pious faith, who come to shed upon his 
feet the balm of expiation. These bring consolation to the 
victim, the others prepare the reward. The clouds open, the 
angel of death touches with his burning finger the brow of the 
man soon to awake an angel himself. Already the hea- 
venly harps shed their vague harmonies over him. The dove 
with the golden feet seems to hover in the glowing vault of 

heaven Dreams of the spiritualist, future of the believer, 

ideal of Socrates, promises of the Son of Mary, you are the 
bright side of the poet's destiny ; you are the incense and myrrh 
necessary to his wounds, you are the crown of his long martyr- 
dom. The poet should have you unceasingly before his eyes 
when he exposes himself to persecution ! and he ought to live 
and labour alone, without entering the tumult of the world 
either in word or deed. 



Six o'clock in the Morning. 

I quitted my room at daybreak, to flee from the fatigue which 
was beginning to weigh down my eyelids. For these two last 
nights, I have, contrary to my usual custom, had uneasy sleep. 
Frightful dreams suddenly awake me. It is my system to re- 
sist nothing, and escape from everything ; this plan is the 
strength of the feeble. Therefore I have resolved not to sleep 
whilst phantoms watch around my pillow. I took my basket 
under my arm ; and in it I put my portfolio, my inkstand, a 
piece of bread, some cigarettes, and took the road to the Cou- 
peries. Here I am on its highest point. The morning is delici- 
ous, and the air filled with the perfume of the young apple 
trees. The meadows, gently sloping under my feet, spread 
themselves out, and extend their soft carpet,, yet white with the 
morning dew, into the valley. The trees which cluster on the 
banks of the Indre, are designed upon the meadows in outlines 
of brilliant green, with their summits just gilded by the sun. 



252 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

I am sitting on the top stone on the hill, and I salute just be- 
fore me, on the other side of the ravine, your little white cottage, 
your orchard, and the mossed roof of your ajoupa. Why have 
you quitted this happy nest, your little children, your aged 
mother, this charming valley, and your friend the Bohemian? 
Wandering swallow, has thou been to seek in Africa, the spring 
which comes too slowly for thy wish ? Ungrateful man, is it 
not always beautiful enough in the spot where one is loved ? 
What are you doing at this hour ? You are awake no doubt, 
alone, without a friend, without a dog. The trees which shelter 
you have not been your planting ; the soil you tread upon owes 
not the flowers which ornament it to you. Perhaps you are 
now supporting the beams of a burning sun, whilst the cold of 
a dewy morning is still stiffening the hand which is writing 
to you. Doubtless you do not think that I am here, watching 
over your orchard, o\er your terraces, over the treasures you 
have left ! Perhaps sleeping at the threshold of a mosque, you 
are dreaming of the four white walls where you have studied so 
much, laboured and dreamed, and grown so old. Perhaps you 

are upon the summit of mount Atlas Ah ! this single 

word effaces all the beauties of the landscape under my eyes, 
the pretty forget-me-not upon which I am sitting, the hawthorn 
hedge which catches my hair, the river murmuring at my feet in 
its veil of morning vapour, what is all this in comparison with 
mount Atlas. I gaze at the horizon, the home of restless spirits, 
so often questioned, and so vainly possessed. I see nothing 
but unconquerable space !. . . . Oh happy man ! at this moment 
you travel over these wild mountains, this enormous chain, the 
formidable backbone of the universe. What snows, what bril- 
liant sun light, what cedars of the Bible, what pythonic sum- 
mits, what palm trees, what unknown flowers do you possess ! 
And how I envy you ! And I reproached you for quitting la 
Rochaille ! Alas, you may perhaps be in one of those moods of 
sadness and fatigue, where nothing that one has consoles one 
for that which one does not possess. Poets ! poets ! race at 
once ungrateful, capricious and irritable ! what wishest thou ? 
To what dost thou aspire ? Who then has bestowed upon thee 
all this power and all this poverty ? What doest thou with thy 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 253 

vast desires when thou dost possess ? "Where findest thou 
superhuman aid when thou art miserable ? As for myself, here 
I am, lost in the pleasures of the fields, forgetting that my life 
is in a balance, of which the equilibrium varies every moment ; 
accepting, without thinking of it, bitter sufferings, which could 
I have foreseen them, would have driven me to suicide two 
years ago, when I wrote to you, " All is over for me." 
* # - * 1? a * * 

They have just opened the sluice in the river. A noise as of 
a cascade, which reminds me of the continual harmony of the 
Alps, makes itself heard in the silence. Thousands of birds 
wake in their turn. Here is the voluptuous cadence of the 
nightingale ; there, in the bushes, the mocking thrill of the 
tomtit ; high in the air is heard the song of the ravished lark 
soaring with the sun, the magnificent star of day drinks up the 
vapours of the valley and plunges his rays into the river, and 
disperses its misty veil. Now he beams upon me, my head, my 
paper. ... it seems as though I were writing upon a tablet of 
burning metal. ... all is heated, and every thing is singing. 
The cocks are waking and calling each other from cottage to 
cottage ; the bells of the town are ringing the Angelas, a peasant 
who is pruning his vine below me, puts down his tools and 
makes the sign of the cross .... On your knees, Malgache 
where'er you may be, on your knees ! pray for your brother who 
prays for you. 

* * •%■ * a- # * 

It must be about eight o'clock, the sun is hot, but in the 
shade, the air is yet cool. I am on the other side of the rock 
in the depth of the ravine, I am concealed and sheltered from 
the wind as in a niche. The sun warms my feet wetted by the 
grass. I have placed them naked on the wholesome earth, 
whilst I make my Pythagorean repast with bread and the water of 
the pretty rivulet which is running through the reeds by my 
side. 

The pathway above is covered with villagers going to mass. 
I shall wait till the sun has dried the long grass before I cross 
it. In an hour I shall pass over dry footed. The rtver has left 
his usual bed, and drowned the pathways with a silver veil. 

» 2 



25 4 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

Nymphs ! awake, or you will be surprised by the enamoured 
Fauns. 

Ah ! my God, my enemies are also awake ! they awake to 
hate me. They rise to do me evil. They make their morning 
prayer, perhaps the only one they have made in their lives, to 
demand my ruin. Listen not unto them, oh beneficent God/the 
^ friend of poets ! I am without any worldly ambition, without 
cupidity, or evil wishes, thou knowest it, thou who lookest upon 
me with the burning eye of heaven. Thou readest the depths 
of my thoughts, as the sun looks into the depths of the bril- 
liant mirror, which he pierces with his ardent ray, and with- 
draws unstained by other fire than that with which he hath 
filled it. Goodness on high, support of the feeble, thou listenest 
not to the prayer of the wicked, for every man is wicked who asks 
from God the ruin and despair of his fellow being. Thou know- 
est I pray for no one's sorrow, and that I do not wish to triumph 
in order to become a tyrant, but in order to be free. Ah ! put 
an end to this impious combat, oh my God ! but do not permit 
hatred and violence to triumph over the innocent. " What 
have 1 done," says the exiled poet, " to be detested, banished from 
my country, hunted from the roof of my fathers, calumniated, 
insulted, called before the judges as a criminal, and menaced 
with a shameful punishment ? Oh pharisees, you are still 
reigning, and that which Jesus wrote upon the sand with his 
finger is effaced from the memory of man !..... But it is well 
done ! why being a poet, why being marked upon the brow 
not to belong to any one, but to lead a wandering life, why 
being destined for sadness and liberty, have I connected myself 
with society ? That was not my lot. God had bestowed upon 
me, a silent and unconquerable pride, a profound hatred for in- 
justice, and an invincible devotion to the oppressed. I was a 
bird of the fields, and I have allowed myself to be caged, a 
wandering bindweed of foreign seas, and they have put me 
under a glass frame. My senses provoked me not to love, 
my heart knew not what it was. My spirit had only need of 
reverie, of my native air, of reading and of melody. Why 
fetter me with indissoluble chains ?. . . . Oh my God ! how 
sweet they would have been had they been accepted by a heart 
like unto my own ! Oh no ! I was not born to be a poet, 1 was 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER; 255 

born to love ! That was the misfortune of my destiny, it is the 
hatred of others which has made me an artist and a wanderer. 
I wished to live the human life ; I had a heart, but they have 
torn it violently from my breast. They have only left me a 
brain full of confusion and grief, of frightful memories, of 
mournful images, of scenes of outrage. . . . And because, whilst 
writing tales to gain the bread which they refused me, I re- 
membered my unhappiness, because I dared to say that there 
are beings miserable in marriage, because of the weakness en- 
joined upon the wife, because of the brutality permitted to the 
husband, because of the turpitudes which society covers with a 
veil and protects with the mantle of abuse, they have called 
me immoral, and treated me as though I were the enemy of the 
human race ! 

Perhaps it is folly and temerity to ask for justice in this life. 
Can men repair the evil they themselves have done ? No ! thou 
alone, oh God ! canst take away the bleeding stains which brutal 
oppression casts each day upon the atoning robes of thy Son 
and those who suffer whilst invoking his name ! At least, thou, 
thou canst and willst ; for thou permittest that even now I am 
happy, in spite of all, at this hour, with no other riches than 
my inkstand, without other shelter than the heavens, with 
no other desire than one day to render good for evil, without 
other earthly pleasure than that of drying my feet upon this 
stone heated by the sun. Oh ! my enemies ! ye know not God ; 
you know not that he heareth not favourably the prayers of 
hatred ! You may do your best, but you cannot deprive me of this 
fine spring morning. 

The sun is just over my head ; I had forgotten myself on the 
bank of the river, sitting on the uprooted tree which serves as 
a bridge. The water flowed so clearly over its bed of blue peb- 
bles, and round the rocks of the river there were so many 
shining groups of wary little fish, there were such myriads of 
dragonflies so transparent, so brilliant glancing about, that I gave 
my spirit wings with the insects, the wave and its inhabitants. 
How pretty this little valley is with its narrow border of bushes 
and flowers, its rapid and joyous torrent, with its mysterious 
depths and horizon bounded by lines of cultivated fields ; how 



256 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

coquettish and winding are the foot-tracks ! and how the smart 
and shining blackbird runs silently before me as I advance. I 
have made my last station at Rock Everard. We have bap- 
tized that black rock in the angle by this name, where the 
shepherds light their reed fire in winter. It was there he 
was sitting the other day saying he asked nothing" else from 
God in his old age, but that rock and liberty. " The beautiful is 
small" said he, " this enclosed landscape and this feeble shelter 
are yet too vast for the physical life of man ; heaven is above 
and the contemplation of the 'infinity of worlds which compose 
it, suffice, I hope, for the life of his intellect?" Thus spoke 
the aged Everard whilst tearing off the tufts of flowering 
heath from the embrowned sides of this rock. This you 
said, Hve years since, when two steps from the rock, you 
planted your poplar trees and your ajoupa. Why are you then 
in Africa ? Nothing suffices to man in this life, it is at once his 

grandeur and his misery. 

****** 

In my eoo^i. 

I went into your garden, your poplars are flourishing, your 
river full of water. But this deserted house, the closed 
shutters, the paths empty of children, the spade which has pre- 
served you from so many attacks of the spleen, and which is 
broken in a corner, all this is very melancholy. I went to see your 
goat ; she would not eat any of the grass I offered her, and 
bleated mournfully ; for an instant I thought she was asking me 
for her master. 

Remounting La Rochaille, from habit I took the road to 
Nohant. For a moment I forgot where I was going ; I saw be- 
fore me the route rising like a terrace, and on the summit, the 
white towers and warren of our chivalric neighbour and loyal 
friend the Chatelain d'Ars. Behind this hill, I did not see, but 
had a presentiment of my own house, the friendly shelter of my 
infancy, the nut trees of my garden, and the cypress waving 
over the beloved dead. I walked quickly and lightly forwards ; 
I felt as though in a dream, astonished at my long absence, and 
in haste to arrive. Suddenly I perceived my own abstraction of 
mind, I recollected that hatred had converted the house of my 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 257 

forefathers into a fortress, whose siege must be raised before I 
could enter it. Oh ! Mary, my hoary-headed ancestress ! when 
I bade adieu to the sacred threshold, I carried away a branch 
of a tree which shelters thy eternal sleep. Is this all which is 
to remain to me of thee ? Thou sleepest near thy beloved son ; 
but is there not a place reserved for me at thy left side. Must 
I die under a stranger sky ? Must I drag out a miserable old age 
afar from the heritage which thou preservedst for me with so 
much love, where I closed thine eyes, as I wish that -mine may 
be closed by my children ? Oh ! my grandmother ! rise and come 
to seek me ! Cast off the shroud in which I enwrapped thy 
body for the last sleep ; let thy aged frame stand up and thy 
withered heart palpitate again under the beneficent warmth of 
the noon-tide rays. Come to aid or console me. Like the sa- 
vages of Meschacebe, I will carry thy remains away upon my 
shoulders, and they shall be my pillow in the desert. Come with 
me, stay not to protect those, who knew thee not, and upon 
whom thy hands have never rested in blessing. But yet not so, 
my grandmother, remain here by thy son ; my children shall go to 
salute thy tomb ; they know thee without having seen thee. 

My son resembles the Maurice so much beloved by thee, and 
whom I resemble myself ; my daughter is fair and grave and 
already majestic like thyself. They are thy blood, Mary ; may 
they also partake thy soul ; if I am taken from them, let thy 
spirit watch over and animate them, let thy ashes be their lasting 
defence, and in the silent night let thy mild or severe accents 
console or warn them. . . . Ah ! if thou hadst lived, all this evil 
would not have happened to me, in thy bosom I should have 
found a sacred' refuge, and thy paralytic hand would have found 
new strength to place itself like destiny, between me and my 
enemies. I die too soon for thee, didst thou say to me, the 
evening before thy death : Why hast thou left me, oh, thou 
who lovedst me, thou whom no one has ever replaced, thou who 
didst love even my defects, thou before whom my strongest 
will was but as wax, and who made my rebellious spirit droop 
before thee by a look ! thou who hast taught me to my eternal 
sorrow, to my eternal loneliness, what love, inexhaustible, pow- 
erful and indestructible, really is ?. . . . Great God ! you know that 
is was she who implanted within me, this intense love of my 



258 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

children ; permit not then that I may be torn from them ; they 
are too young to bear what I have borne in losing her. 

P Malgache, your mother is old; do not remain long away 
from her. When she is no longer with you, you will bitterly 
regret the days passed far from her side, and in vain wouldst 
thou revive them. 

II tempo passa e non ritorna a noi, 

E non vale il pentirsene di poi. 



LETTER X. 

TO HERBERT. 



My old friend, I promised to write you a sort of journal of 
my travels, if travels they may be called, from the Valine Noire 
to Chamouni. I send it, and beg you to excuse the futility of this 
relation. To a man so melancholy and austere as yourself, none 
but serious affairs should be written ; but although older myself 
by some years than you are, I am still but a child, both from my 
neglected education and fragile organization. This gives me some 
right to indulgence, and nothing would be less becoming to me, 
than any gravity of tone or form. You have treated me as a 
spoiled child, all of you whom I love ; and you beyond all, 
gloomy dreamer, who have a smile or any feeling of youth 
only when you see me caracolicg over the quicksands and 
fantastic clouds of existence. 

Alas, this treacherous gaiety, which has so often failed in its 
promise towards me I a ray of sunlight breaking through the 
stormy clouds ! thou hast often done me much evil ! thou hast 
borne me away into the fairy regions of forgetfulness, and thou 
hast allowed gloomy spectres to enter the halls of my joy, and 
seat themselves at my festivals. Thou hast allowed them to 
mount behind me on my winged courser, and struggle with me 
till they had precipitated me to the earth of reality and remem- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 259 

brance. But what matters it, blessed be thou, spirit of folly ! 
at once a good and evil angel, often ironical and bitter, but 
more often sympathizing and generous ! spread thy variegated 
sails, oh beloved fancy ! and thy wings of many colours ; and 
bear me over those beaten roads which my feebleness prevents 
my quitting, but in whose soil my feet are not entangled, 
thanks to thee ! preserve in me the humble sentiment of my 
own nothingness, in the philosophic acceptation of that con- 
venient nothingness which sometimes ennobles itself by the 
victory achieved over vain aspirations.. ... Oh gaity ! thou 
which canst not be real without the peace of one's own con- 
science, nor durable without the habit of strength, thou who 
wert not the dowry of my best years, and who leftst me entirely 
in the days of my manhood, come like an autumn breeze and 
play with my hair already grey, and dry upon my cheeks the 
last tears of my youth. 

And you, dear old friend, lend yourself to the caprices of 
my chattering and the absurdity of my observations. You 
know I do not travel to study the wonders of nature, for I am 
not happy enough to understand them sufficiently to look at 
them otherwise than almost by stealth. The desire of seeing 
beloved friends and the need of locomotion are my sole attrac- 
tions towards the country you have abandoned ; and perhaps 
it may give you some pleasure to hear it spoken of, however 
ill or slightly. There are some spots whose names alone recall 
enchanting scenes, and indescribable remembrances. May I be 
able, whilst causing you to traverse them with me, to lighten 
your brow for an instant and relieve it from the burthen of the 
noble cares which weigh upon it ! 



Atjttjn, 2nd September. j 

God forbid that I should depreciate wine ! generous blood 
of the grape, brother of that which flows in the veins of man ! 
what noble inspirations thou hast re-animated in our fainting 
spirits ! what brilliant beams of youth hast thou not rekindled 
in our extinguished hearts ! Noble sap of the earth, inexhaust- 



260 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

ible and patient as hers elf > opening like her sources of faithful- 
ness always young and always glowing, to the feeble as to the 
strong, to the wise man as the fool. But he is thine enemy, as 
he is the enemy of providence, who seeks in thee a stimulant 
to impure joys, an excuse for gross excesses ! He is the pro- 
faner of celestial griefs, he who would exhaust thy beneficent 
resources, and abdicate and cast back the treasure of his reason 
into the hand of God. 

The celestial origin of the vine is consecrated by the tradi- 
tion of every religion. In every nation it is the Divinity by 
whose intervention humanity is gratified by so precious a gift. 
According to our bible, the blood of the aged Noah was agree- 
able to God, who preserved it even as the sap of the vine, like 
two rivulets of life for ever blessed upon the earth. 

I have seen during the early days of spring, under the vine 
trellices which are interlaced amongst the fig trees of the 
Adriatic, matrons, draped almost like those of ancient Greece, 
who received carefully into a vial what they poetically termed 
the tears of the vine. The liquid dew escaped drop by drop from 
the end of every branch, and flowed during the night into vases 
placed for its reception. I liked the religious care with which 
these women went to receive the precious collyrium in the first 
light of morning. I loved the exquisite perfume of the flower- 
ing vines, the breezes of the Archipelago expiring on the shores 
of Italy, and the sign of the cross which accompanied each 
new division of the sacred plani. It was a kind of pagan 
ceremony preserved and made youthful again by Christianity. 
The worship of the child Bacchus seemed mingled with that of 
the child God, and I am not quite sure that the ancient Ohe 
Evohe ! did not die upon these matron's lips with the Catholic 
Amen. 

The worship of the rural divinities has always seemed to me 
the most charming and poetical expression of man's gratitude 
towards creation. I admit of no false gods, I consider them all 
as ideas, true, salutary and grand. And as to the infallibility 
of religions, I know that the most excellent may and must 
be deteriorated, like all which descends from above, into the 
dominion of man. But I believe in the wisdom of nations, 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 261 

in their grandeur, in their strength, in the influence of the 
climate they inhabit, and consequently I have faith in the pre- 
eminence of certain ideas, as to belief and worship. Eternal 
truth, always veiled to man, has shown itself more or less 
vaguely towards those who have sought it, through a purer at- 
mosphere and brighter skies ! Our faith is more beautiful be- 
cause more simple. It harmonizes well with the austere nature 
which conceived it, and with the grand and picturesque scenery 
and burning climate in which the unity of God was revealed to 
man. That of Polytheism is intoxicating as the climate which 
engendered it, and I find in it all the traditions of excess and 
inconstancy which a too fortunate situation reveals in human 
nature. . 

I love the fable of Bacchus, an embryo cherished in the thigh 
of a god ; like Noah, saved by miraculous protection from un- 
usual dangers, if not from a deluge ; and like him, bringing to 
mankind, the benefit of a new tree of life. But, on the too 
fertile shores of Greece, I see the vine grow and multiply in 
such luxuriance that men soon abuse it, and the wine press, 
from which Evohe dedicated pure libations to his father, sends 
forth fearful groups of hideous satyrs, and the obscene Thyades. 
Then men sought for exaggerated enjoyment in the wise 
remedy sent to their weakness and ennui. Insensate debauch 
polluted the temple steps, the goat, impure holocaust to the 
rustic divinities, associates ideas of evil odour and brutality 
with the worship of pleasure. The joyous songs of the festival 
were changed into howlings, the dance became the bloody com- 
bats in which the divine Orpheus perished, the god of wine be- 
came the god of intemperance, and austere Christianity is forced 
to interpose with macerations and fasting, and open a new route 
for intoxicated and slumbering humanity to save it from its own 
excesses. 

If I seek the history of the postdiluvian cultivator in the 
more simple and naive version of old Noah, I see his race use 
the divine fruit more soberly and more religiously. The first 
victim to his own imprudence, he learnt at his own expense, 
that the blood of the grape was hotter and more vigorous than 
his own ; he fell vanquished, and his pious children learnt the 



262 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

virtue of abstinence the very day when they became acquainted 
with a new enjoyment. On the burning slopes of Judea the 
vine multiplied its riches soberly, and man, preserving a sort of 
respect for the divine effects of the precious plant, inscribed 
this touching law in her Book of Wisdom : 

" Leave wine to those who labour, and strong drink to those 
who are in bitterness of heart. 

"It is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes to drink 
strong drink ; they must be left for those who labour, and suffer 
in bitterness of heart. " 

Honour to the primitive ages ! love to the antique shepherd's 
regrets for tbe youth of the world. Period agreeable to Gol, 
when man sought for science without its being possible to know 
the fatal use to which it might be turned ; when wisdom was 
not an empty word, and agreed in the patriarchal code, with 
the true and noble wants of humanity ! ye appear grand and 
almost impossible when we compare you with modern society. 
God ! great God ! thou who spakest from the mountain to say 
unto men, " Do this," and who sawest thy law accomplished ! 
thou whose word descended into the tabernacles of Israel, and 
instructed and directed its kneeling legislators ! what dost thou 
now feel in thy paternal bosom, when thou seest the earth 
subjected to the impious will and insensate desires of a hand- 
ful of perverse men, the sacred word law translated into per- 
sonal interest, labour replaced by cupidity, august and holy 
ceremonies by stupid customs or mysteries not understood, your 
Levites by pontiffs, enemies to the people, the fear of thy anger 
or displeasure by crowds of mercenary soldiers, the only restraint 
which princes know how to employ, or the people how to re- 
cognize ! 

What must we think of an age when moral education is 
entirely left to chance, when youth learns neither to regulate 
its intellectual wants, nor to govern its physical appetites, when 
the book of divers religions is presented to it, and smilingly 
explained, with a recommendation to believe in none of them ; 
when, instead of any precepts, he is merely advised not to get into 
trouble with the police in the first excesses he commits, and 
not to profess too loudly the theory of those vices of which the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 263 

practice is left free to him ? What is he taught of love, that 
passion which awakes first of all, and which is susceptible of so 
noble a development in the heart of youth ? Nothing, except 
that he must commit as few follies as may be for women, play 
as fine a game as possible with coquettes, guard against any 
enthusiasm, console himself with prostitutes for the defeats his 
cunning may have sustained ; and that he is to sacrifice on all 
occasions to personal interest, pleasure or fortune, the most 
beautiful sentiment which can blossom in virgin souls ! 

What is he taught of ambition, of the thirst of action and 
glory which soon stifles the promptings of any exclusive affec- 
tion, and often even prevents their birth ? Is he told that this 
generous ardour must be governed, and that his acquired talents 
and strength must all be devoted to the service of humanity ? 
He may have read something like this in his childish years in 
the writings of the antique philosophers, and he is taught to 
judge of their merits in a literary point of view ; and then 
society opens to him her eager arms and frozen bosom. Give 
me thy intelligence, she saith, give me the fruit of thy labours 
and thy watchings, and I will give thee in return riches to 
satisfy thy vices ; for thou hast vices, I know, I love them, I 
protect them, I cover them with my mantle, I afford them the 
mysterious shelter of my complaisance. Serve me, enrich me, 
give me thy talents and thy labours, let them augment my 
enjoyments, maintain my power, and sanction my turpitudes : 
and I will open unto thee the sanctuaries of iniquity which I 
reserve for my elect ! 

Thus, far from developing and directing the two sources of 
grandeur inherent in youth, glory and voluptuousness ; far from 
exalting all that they have of divine within them and mingling 
it with the ardour and enjoyments of life, society as it is, uses 
them only to brutalize man, and attach him to a gross and 
deathly materialism. It takes a pleasure in developing animal 
instincts ; it creates and protects dens of corruption, means of 
all kinds to support, re-animate or satisfy the wants of the most 
ignoble, and even the most impure fancies. How is it possible 
that natural enjoyments, if not subjected to any moral restraint, 
nor any rule of legislation, should not degenerate into excess ? 



264 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

How should the love of glory be prevented from deteriorating 
into the love of gold ? How should love and wine not lead on 
to debauchery ? 

All this is a-propos of a patrician debauch which I have just 
witnessed in a tavern ! I have travelled a great deal in my life ; 
I have reposed myself in many village public-houses ; 1 have 
slept in many dirty taverns, amongst broken seats and the 
fragments of cups reddened by the roughest and sourest wine ; 
I have nearly had my head broken by waggoners or carriers 
fighting round me ; and I have heard the obscene jests and in- 
decent songs of holiday-making villagers, I have seen drunken 
soldiers, furious sailors, I have seen famished beggars buying 
brandy with the only penny gained in the day. I have seen 
young and beautiful women rolling in the mire, and would-be- 
wits of the diligence exchanging low jests with the maids of 
the inns. Who. is there who has not seen all this if he has 
ever travelled with but little money. 

Now I am not of an intolerant disposition, and though often 
fatigued and vexed by such encounters, I have always sup- 
ported them with, philosophic composure. What right have I 
to despise the bad taste of a man deprived of education?] 
With what face could I reproach a poor man with abdicating 
the dignity of human intelligence, when it is I and my equals on 
the social ladder who refuse him the exercise of this intelli- 
gence and repulse its employment ? Why therefore, oh thou, 
whom we have reduced to the state of a beast of burden, shouldst 
thou not seek to render thy fate less odious by destroying thy 
memory and thy reason, by drinking as Obermann says in his 
sublime pity, forgetfulness of thy griefs ? 

What ! thy daily sufferings do not seem insupportable to us, 
our ears are not wounded by thy complaints ; our eyes see with- 
out disgust, the sweat of thy brow, without relaxation, without 
end ; our heart is insensible to thy misery, and thy few hours 
of joy revolt us ! it is enough, unhappy one ! that thy troubles 
are despised. Let thy pleasures at least pass free ! Let excess 
clothed in rags alone, let it howl at the doors of the dwellings 
of the rich, it will never pass the threshold. Let it sleep 
upon the steps of the palace whose delight it may at least 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 265 

dream of one whole night. . . . But no ! for the people there are 
police regulators. The lupanars of the aristocracy are open at 
all hours, the public houses of the poor are shut at night, and 
the watch carries off to prison him who has neither carriage nor 
lacquey to see him safe home ! 

Listen to what the rich say to authorize this injustice, " The 
gaity of well-bred people is neither noisy nor inconvenient ; 
that of the people is even worse, it is dangerous. The people 
know none of the restraints of education." And a-propos of this 
the aristocrats of the present day make very noble theories upon 
necessary distinctions, and indisputable superiorities. They 
own to-day that birth is a prejudice, and that 'gold confers no 
personal merit. They declare that education alone establishes a 
legitimate and holy hierarchy. " Make the people like us," say 
they, " and we will admit them to social equality." 

These men forget one point, which is, that the people not . 
having been able to become like them yet, they have made them- 
selves whilst waiting, similar to the people, at least in their 
vices and vulgarity. 

If I remember rightly, I have never seen any orgie of patri- 
cians, except upon the stage, at the theatre L'Odeon and of 
the Porte St. Martin. I own it appeared to me very dull and 
fatiguing. But it all passed very properly. Two or three 
speaking characters, very busy with their own affairs, consulted 
in an aside or any thing else but the orgie, and along the table 
ten or twelve others, very well dressed, were lifting cups of gilded 
wood to their lips in regular time, clinking them one against 
another with a dull sound : 

And in a tone to excite our pitj r , 
They chanted forth a merry ditty. 

Therefore I was not much alarmed at a " young man's dinner 
party," which was going on at the other end of the garden. 
The house was quite full on account of the fair, there was no 
place where we could eat alone, and no common room which 
was not full of com?nis voyageurs* 

I ask pardon of one of the companions of my childhood who 
sells me excellent wine, and for whom I would sell, did he re- 
* Commercial-travellers or commission agents. 



266 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

quire it, my last pair of boots ; I ask pardon of several commis* 
voyageurs who have written me abusive letters on account of 
some bad joke or other of mine against them, printed I know 
not where. I ask pardon, earnestly ask pardon, of the me- 
mory of one, whose remembrance is buried in stricken hearts. 
But I must confess in the face of Heaven and Earth, that I 
cannot bear commis -voyageurs. ... or at least I have never been 
able to bear them until to-day, which will perhaps reconcile me 
with them for ever. 

Thus it happened, that dreading a literary conversation, I 
accepted the offer of an infernal hostess, more witchlike and 
poisonous looking than even Gil Bias has related of all the inn- 
keepers of the Spanish empire. I let her arrange a table in the 
corner of the garden, behind an espalier, for my children, their 
nursery maid, and myself. I looked like a young pastor ac- 
companied by his housekeeper and his nephews. 

At the other side of the garden there was a large table and a 
very merry party. " These are very fashionable people," the 
hostess had said to me, " the flower of the gentlemen of this 
country ; there is Monsieur the Count,. . . . Monsieur the Mar- 
quis,. . . . and then Monsieur de " Thank God, I have no 

memory for names, still less for surnames ; but my Senhora 
Leonarda had her mouth full of them, and I hoped to see a, 
festive party as orderly as those of the Odeon and Porte St. 
Martin. Without offence to the nobility, be it said, I have 
frequented it very little in my life. I know it wears gloves, 
that its chin is always well shaved and its beard nicely per- 
fumed ; I know it is very agreeable to see, and I never should 
have imagined it would be so disagreeable to hear. 

Perhaps you expect I shall relate the orgie to you 

Faith, you deceive yourself utterly. Besides, I was only pre- 
sent at the musical part of it, at the introduction so to speak ; 
then I was hidden by the espaliers, and thank God, I could 
see absolutely nothing of it. And my dinner and that of my 
family was finished in ten minutes, and I retired more satisfied 
than I had been at the Odeon or the Porte St. Martin for at 
any rate here I had paid nothing for my entrance. 

At this moment I am almost reconciled with the proceeding of 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 267 

Lucretia Borgia, having seen how insupportable drunken lords 
can render themselves to the spectator. 

I mounted the diligence immediately after this representation ; 
I heard the stable-boy address this philosophical remark to the 
conductor, as the refrain of a song was heard over the wall : 
" If that was any of us, people would say, ' there is the mob 
getting riotous !' but as it is they, all that is said is ■ there is 
the beau monde amusing itself!' " The reply of the other speaker 
was as energetic as the occasion deserved ; were it not for the 
foolish custom, which no longer permits us, as in the times 
of Dante and Montaigne, to write certain words of the language, 
I would repeat it here ; for the obscenity of the people is almost 
always imbued with genius ; it is a wild and terrible appeal 
to the justice of God ! that of the great world is nothing but 
a stupid blasphemy ; without motive and consequently without 
excuse. . . . 

Oh ye whom I have misappreciated, and before whom I bow 
myself to-day ! oh ! commis-voyageurs ! I still protest that you 
are very tedious, and that your wit overflows sometimes in a most 
provoking manner. But I swear by Bacchus and by Noah, I swear 
by all the good and bad wine which you sell, that you are much 
more agreeable, that you have much more politeness and know- 
ledge of good behaviour than the young aristocrats of the provinces. 
I depose, and I would seal it with my blood, that you conduct 
yourselves fifty times better in the inns, that your manners are 
excellent in comparison with theirs, and that it is a thousand 
times preferable to undergo your society and your table.d'hote 
recitals, than to be even fifty feet distant from the table of people 
comme ilfaut. Let peace be made between us, and write me 
no more angry letters, or at least pay their postage, if you 
please. 

And thou, old friend of the poet! generous blood of the 
grape ! thou whom the naive Homer and the gloomy Byron 
celebrated in their finest verses ! thou who didst reanimate genius 
for so long a time in the frame of the morbid Hoffmann ! thou 
who didst prolong the powerful old age of Goethe and who 
often givest a superhuman strength to the exhausted energy of 
the greatest artists ! pardon me for speaking of the dangers of. 



2€3 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

thy worship ? Sacred plant ! thou growest at the foot of Hy- 
mettus, and communicatest thy divine fire to the weary poet, 
when having lingered in the plains and wishing to return to- 
wards the lofty summits, he feels no more his pristine vigour. 
Thou circlest in his veins, and givest him a magical youth; 
thou bringest a pure untroubled sleep to his burning eyelids, 
and makest entire Olympus descend to him in his celestial 
visions. Let fools despise thee, let the fakirs of bon ton pro- 
scribe thee, let the wives of patricians turn away their eyes in 
horror on seeing thee moisten the lips of the divine Malibran. 
They are in the right to forbid their lovers to drink before them. 
The imagination of these men is too foul, their memory too full 
of impurities, for it to be prudent for them to show their naked 
thoughts. But come, oh river of life ! and flow abundantly into 
the cups of my friends. Disciples of the divine Plato, wor- 
shippers of the beautiful, they detest the sight as well as the 
thought of all that is ignoble ; they wish all to be pure even in 
joy, that a chaste woman may not cease to be so even at table ; 
• that the youth may not profane his lip by the cynic's laugh, 
that the artist may utter all his ambition, and that none may 
sneer at him. They wish indeed, they can, they dare deliver 
up all the treasures of their soul, and have nothing to be re- 
proached when the grey daylight surprises us still at table 
in our garret, and mingles tenderly and timidly its blue gleam 
with the red lustre of the expiring tapers! or when in the 
country, in the open air, with flasks and fruits before us, 
Aurora finds us in the garden, in presence of the full moon ; 
laughing at her pale countenance, which resembles a timid or 
dreaming maiden, trying, but too late, to retire modestly before 
the full splendour of the sun arrives. Oh lovely nights of the 
glowing summer which has just passed over us, and which 
many years may not restore to us ! Daybreak without dew! Even- 
ings of Italy ! Hours of repose upon the turf ! melodious 
song of the linnet, hailing the appearance of Venus ! stars 
so beautiful in the hour of struggle between day and night ! 
perfumes of the twilight! ecstacy of silence followed so 
often by kind words and joyous laughter ! continue to charm 
our life, free from ambition, and our nights without bit- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 269 

terness, and let the regenerating Madeira, and facetious cham- 
pagne, come from hour to hour to chase away sleep and lighten 
the brain, when my friends are together and I am with them ! 



From Chaloxs to Lyoxs. 

Extended on the quarter deck, and wrapped up in my cloak, 
I slept a profound sleep on the steam-boat, waiting for the 
day to appear and brighten the flat, and, whatever the natives 
may say, the cheerless shores of the Saone. To whom does 
this frank and good-humoured countenance belong which seems 
watching over my careless sleep, and preventing the sailors 
from treating me like a bale of goods ? It. is well worth while 
indeed to study Lavater and Spurzheim, to judge a face so 
badly ! The truth is, I was completely deceived yesterday, and 
taking this young man for one of the debauchees of the little 
inn, I savagely refused the friendly offer of his carriage. It is 
true that on the deck of the packet boat, we are all equals, and 
that if the patrician takes a fancy to mock my seminarist face, 
and my peasant manners, neither politeness nor gratitude 
enchain my tongue, and I may declare my opinion of him and 

of his friends But he seems to me neither ill-natured nor 

haughty. Let us wait and see. 

I meet an old friend, a piece of real good fortune in tra- 
velling. Facetious and satirical, he helps me to forget that I 
am overcome with fatigue. He sketches off each traveller, from 
head to foot, by a single picturesque phrase. My heart con- 
tracted painfully when I saw him, for his presence recalled a 
whole existence to my memory, of strange dreams, and a 
wretched life, of which he was at once the calm and com- 
passionate spectator. But he seems to divine the part of my 
heart which is not yet healed from its wounds, and does not 
touch it. He laughs, he jests, he speaks as Callot draws. To 
look upon life as a burlesque when one has drunk its cup of 
bitters to the dregs, is the deed of a high philosophy ; but in 
me I own, it is only the sign of great weakness. What matters 

s 2 



270 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

it, I laugh, I am happy for an hour — it" seems to me as though 
I had only been born yesterday. 

Paul's eye is peculiarly that of an artist, and I can see all the 
objects flying behind us on the river banks through his mocking 
fantasy. The steeple of Macon made me burst with laughter ; I 
could never have believed that a steeple could have diverted me so 
much. But Paul himself never laughs ; his grave gaity, that 
of the children, expansive and noisy, the handsome face and 
delicate obliging manners of the legitimist, Ursula's consternation 
on finding herself, as she believed, on the open sea, my Bohemian 
freedom, all this was enough to make us comrades, and unite in 
one society at the inn at Lyons. 

" What is our friend called?" said Paul to me in a whisper, 
pointing to the legitimist. 

" The devil take me if T know !" 

" Demand his papers," said Paul, with dignity. When his 
passport was inspected, he was found to be a patrician ; well, he 
must be forgiven for that. He is rich, that is quite indifferent 
to us, a proof that it is useless to know the name and condition 
of people. He is amiable, modest, and well bred. What need 
have we to know more ? He is going to Geneva ; we shall go 
all together ; but no, Paul leaves us, and descends the Phone. 
His destiny or his fancy leads him that way. Our impromptu 
friend, and I and my family travel post at our joint expense, 
and to-night we shall see the lake of Nantua. 



i Nantua. 

Mountains without grandeur, a lake without vastness, and a 
country without character for those who have seen the Alps. 
And nevertheless, here and there, there are singular points of 
view, a mass of rocks strangely formed, bastions and pillars one 
might imagine sculptured by the hand of man, angles of the 
mountains opening upon fertile valleys, sites without nobleness, 
but lull of variety, and succeeding each other rapidly under our 
which are not exactly delighted, but employed ; this is how 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 271 

the Bugey has appeared to me this time. Formerly I should have 
thought it hideous. Never read my letters with any intention of 
learning anything as to exterior objects with the least certainty, 
for I see them all through the medium of my personal impres- 
sions. A journey for me is nothing but a course of psychology 
and physiology, of which I am the object, subjected to all the 
probation and experiences which tempt me, condemned to suffer 
all the adulation and pity which each of us is forced to lavish, 
alternately, upon himself, if he wish to cherish the disposition 
of the moment ; the enthusiasm or disgust for life, the caprice 
of one's reigning hobby, the influence of sleep, the quality of 
the coffee in the inns, &c. &c. 

We took it into our heads to look for great beauties here, for 
we had been told upon honour that beauties of the first order 
were to be found, and we believed the author of the report. 
We engage a Swiss car, and get ourselves taken to Meriat in a 
pouring rain, accompanied by thunder claps of a most abrupt 
and unforeseen kind, and of a sound as strange as the form of 
the rocks which echo them. The guide deceives himself as to 
the route to be followed, and goes up the mountain instead of 
descending the ravine. The rain redoubles ; no hope of dining 
on the grass ; so we dine philosophically in the car. We break 
the neck of a bottle, and hob-a-nob with a Britannic gravity ; 
when suddenly we discover that we are on the very brink of a 
precipice. The charioteer, wet through and in a very bad hu- 
mour, finds out his mistake, and wishes to turn, but the 
road is too narrow. The horse refuses to break his neck ; 
therefore it is for the car to suffer all the consequences of 
its inconvenient construction and the anchylosis of its springs. 
The difficulty of the undertaking discourages the guide. He 
leaves us with one wheel hanging over the abyss, glass in hand, 
very awkwardly situated as to getting out, still more awkwardly 
off if we remain where we are. 

Happily we are all screaming with laughter, and one is never 
killed whilst laughing. We find a way of getting out of the old 
.leathern box, we raise the vehicle, we carry the horse, we thrash 
the coachman, and I get off with only a glass of wine spilled in 
the pocket of my blouse. 



272 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

At last we entered the ravine, not perpendicularly, as we had 
just been threatened, but by a pretty road covered with wild 
flowers, all sparkling with rain-drops, and bordered by a rivulet* 
which was becoming a torrent, and enlarging every moment. 
The rain beat amongst tffe scattered branches of the fir trees ; 
clouds were hovering over the sides of the ravine, and fog en- 
circled its summits ; and following the pathway through a thou- 
sand angles, running through a gloomy forest, we penetrated at 
length into a region really sublime in its utter sadness. Not a 
human face, not a cottage roof. Two pointed ramparts, covered 
with evergreens which seemed to grow one upon another, pressed 
close upon us, and appeared by their numerous windings to shut 
us into inextricable solitudes. 

I have seen many grander situations, but I have seen none 
more austere. The most beautiful parts of the Alps, Pyrenees, or 
Apennines do not produce a vegetation more robust or more im- 
posing ; nowhere have I seen finer forests of gigantic firs ; lofty, 
proud, and full of foliage, they seem, both from their number 
and elevated position, to defy destruction, and to spring up again 
under the thunder-storm and the hatchet. 

At Meriat, the remains of the Chartreuse consist* of some fine 
arcades covered with climbing plants, and half buried under the 
crumbling of the mountain, over which the turf has again grown ; 
the portal is still standing, and retains its monastic ' air. The 
torrent precipitates itself noisily just behind the Chartreuse, and 
falls over an angle of a detached building, whose destruction it 
is completing, and which it seems ready to carry away in its course 
some stormy day. What was the destination of tnis building in 
monkish days ? I have been imagining to myself that it was their 
place of punishment, and that the cataract flowed over the vaulted 
roof of a damp dungeon filled with terrors. Allow me this fancy, 
there are no cicerones there, but two silent and savage giants, 
the forester and his daughter, who both seem to partake of the 
nature of the fir-trees of the country, proud as ruined hidalgoes, 
declaring that they are neither tavern nor public-house keepers, 
and nevertheless selling to the curious who go to visit them all 
that can be found in a public-house for money. 

This situation appeared to me, in the midst of the rain, admi- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 27,* 

rably chosen for a life of eternal uniformity, and for men vowed 
to the worship of one single and definite idea. No perspective 
no contrasts ; slopes of green turf of unbroken magnificence, 
depths of forests, almost without an issue, or the least outlet for 
the vision or the thought ; fir-trees everywhere, narrow meadows 
and forests bounded by the invincible ramparts of the mountain, 
by eternal mist. ... I say eternal, though I have only passed one 
hour there. If they are not eternal, if there ever is sunshine on 
the Chartreuse de Meriat, if the torrent flows there limpid and 
calm sometimes, if melancholy raises her sombre veil for an in- 
stant, and if such a situation seems to try to smile, I declare it 
ponsif, as they say in the studios, that is to say, trivial, and a 
failure in point of beauty. I disinherit it from my sympathy, 
I withdraw it from my memory, and I will reckon as grocers * 
and badly taught, all those who go there in fine weather. 

I got wet to the skin, which cured me homoeopathically of a 
most obstinate cold ; that is to say, I exchanged a bearable cough 
for a severe feverish attack, which forced me to pass the night 
in a village inn, almost at the gates of Geneva. 

But at my rising, I saluted Mont Blanc from my window, a 
snowy fortress meeting the horizon, and at my feet I saw all the 
fine country of Gex, spread like an immense striped carpet at the 
foot of Savoy. 

Geneva. 

" Gentlemen, where do you get down r" 

" It is the postilion speaking. Answer." 

" At Monsieur Listz's." 

" Where does he live ?" 

" Just what I was going to ask you." 

" What is he, what is his trade ?" 

" An artist." 

u Veterinary ?" 

" Are you ill, you animal ?" 

* Epiciers. This is literally grocers, but has another signification, (much 
used by Balzac and modern French authors), nearly equivalent to our word 
cockney — when used in derision of any pretence to romance or false sen- 
timent. 



274 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

M He is a violin seller/' said a passer by. " I will show you 
where he lives." 

They made us climb a perpendicular street, and the landlady 
of the house pointed out, told us that Listz was in England 

" The woman is a fool," said another passer by. " M. Listz 
is # musician at the theatre, go and ask the manager." 

" Why not ?" said the legitimist. And he goes to find the 
manager ; who declares that Listz is at Paris. " Doubtless," 
said I, angrily, "and he is gone to engage himself as first flageolet 
in Musard's orchestra, is he not ?" 

" Why not ?" said the manager. 

" Here is the door of the Casino," said, I do not know who. 
" All the young ladies who take music lessons know M. Listz." . 

" I should like to speak to the one who is now coming out 
with a portfolio of music under her arm," said my companion. 

" Why not, especially as she is pretty ?" 

The legitimist made three bows d, la fran^aise, and asked for 
Listz's address in the politest manner possible. The young lady 
blushed, cast down her eyes, and with a smothered sigh, replied 
that M. Listz was in Italy. 

" Let him go to the devil, I shall go and sleep in the first inn 
I come to, and he may come and look for me in his turn." 

At the inn, they brought me a letter from his sister : — 

" We waited for you, but you are behind your time, and we 
are tired of waiting. Find us, we are gone. 

" Arabella." 

P.S. — " See the major, and come with him to find us." 

" But who is the major ?" 

" What does that matter ?" said the legitimist. 

" What indeed ? Waiter, go and seek the major." 

The major came. He had a face like Mephistopheles, and 
the cloak of a custom-house officer. He looked at me from 
head to foot, and asked me who I was. 

" A badly dressed traveller as you see, who is recommended 
by Arabella." 

" Ah ! ah ! I will run and get a passport." 

" Is the man mad ?" 

" Not at all, to-morrow we set off for Mont Blanc. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 275 

Here we are at Chamouni, the rain falling, and night darkening. 
I get down by chance at the Union, which the people of this part 
of the country pronounce Oignon^ and this time 1 take good care 
not to call the European artist by his name. I suit myself to the 
enlightened people whom I have the honour to visit, and I 
therefore give a summary description of the personage ; a shabby 
blouse, hair long and disorderly, straw hat rather broken, 
cravat rolled round the neck like a cord, lame for the time being, 
and humming the Dies iroe habitually, in an agreeable manner. 
<k Certainly, monsieur," said the landlord ; " they are just ar- 
rived, the lady is very tired, and the young lady in fine spirits. 
You must go upstairs, they are in number thirteen." 

" This cannot be right,'' thought I, " but never mind, I rush 
into number thirteen, determined to fling myself into the arms 
of the first splenetic Englishman who falls in my way. I was so 
muddy that this was a trick quite worthy of a commis-voyageur" 
The first object that got under my feet, was what the landlord 
called the young lady. It was Puzzi astride on a carpet bag, and 
so altered, so tall, with such long brown hair, and dressed in 
such a feminine blouse, that faith ! I got quite puzzled, and not 
recognizing the little Herman, I took off my cap, saying : " Fair 
page, tell me where Lara is ?" 

At these words, the fair-haired head of Arabella appeared out 
of the depths of a large English cloak, and whilst I was spring- 
ing towards her, Franz throws himself on my neck, Puzzi 
utters a cry of surprise ; we form an inextricable group of em- 
braces, so that the maid of the inn, stupified at seeing such a 
muddy young man, whom until then, she had taken for a jockey, 
embracing such a fine lady as Arabella, flings down her candle, 
and goes to spread all over the house the news that number 
thirteen is invaded by a troop of indescribable mysterious people, 
as hairy as savages, amongst whom it is impossible to distinguish 
the men from the women, the masters from the valets. 

" Actors !" said the cook with an air of contempt ; and behold 
us stigmatized, pointed at, held in horror. The English ladies 
whom we met in the corridors, lowered their veils over their 
modest countenances, and their majestic lords concerted amongst 
themselves to ask us during supper for a specimen of our abi- 



276 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

lities, in consideration of a reasonable collection. This is the 
proper place to communicate to you the most scientific remark 
I have ever made in my whole life. 

The natives of Albion carry about with them a peculiar 
fluid, which I will call the Britannic fluid, and in the midst of 
which they travel ; thus they are as little accessible to the at- 
mosphere of the regions they traverse as a mouse is in the 
centre of the exhausted receiver. It is not only to the 
thousand precautions with which they surround themselves that 
their eternal impassibility is owing. It is not only because they 
have three pairs of breeches one over the other, that they come 
in perfectly dry and clean notwithstanding the rain and the 
mud ; it is not only because they wear woollen wigs that their 
stiff and metallic looking curls brave humidity ; it is not only 
because they all march about provided each one with as much 
pomade, brushes and soap as would be necessary to adonize a 
whole regiment of Bas Breton conscripts, that they have always 
their beards in such good order, and such irreproachable nails. 

It is because the exterior air has no hold over them, it is be- 
cause they walk, drink, sleep, and eat in their fluid, as though 
they were in a glass case twenty feet thick, and across which they 
look pityingly upon cavaliers, uncurled by the wind, and pedes- 
trians dirted by the snow. I have asked myself, on looking at- 
tentively at the skulls, the physiognomies of the fifty English 
of both sexes, who meet every night round the tables dhole, 
in Switzerland, what could be the motive of so many distant, 
perilous and difficult pilgrimages, and I think I have really dis- 
covered it, thanks to the major whom I have assiduously con- 
sulted upon this matter. This is it ; for an Englishwoman the 
true aim of life, is to succeed in traversing the most elevated 
and stormy regions, without having a single hair disarranged. 
For an Englishman, it is to re-enter his country without having 
made a hole in his boots or dirtied his gloves. It is through 
this, that, when they meet in the evening after their troublesome 
excursions, men and women stand under arms, and display 
themselves with a noble and satisfied air, in all the majestic 
impermeability of their tourist equipment. It is not these per- 
sons who travel, it is their wardrobe ; and the man is only the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 277 

opportunity for the portmanteau, the mere vehicle for the ha- 
biliments. I should not be at all astonished to see appearing 
in London, travels entitled " Promenades of a Hat in the Pon- 
tine marshes," " Remembrances of Helvetia by the collar of a 
coat," " Expedition round the world by an India-rubber cloak." 

The Italians fall into the contrary defect. Accustomed to a 
mild and equal climate, they despise the most simple precautions, 
and the variations of temperature affect them so strongly in our 
climate, that they are soon seized with nostalgia ; they walk 
through with superb contempt, and carrying with them always 
the regret for their own lovely country, they loudly and inces- 
santly compare it with every thing else they see. They seem as 
though they were going to sell Italy in a lottery, and to be 
seeking buyers for their tickets. If any thing could deprive 
one of the wish to pass the Alps, it would be the species of 
auction which one must hear of every town and village whose 
names alone make the heart of an Italian swell, and his voice 
rise as soon as he pronounces them. 

The best travellers, and those who make the least noise 
about it are the Germans, excellent pedestrians, intrepid smok- 
ers, and all rather musical or botanical in their tastes. They 
see things slowly, wisely, and console themselves for the fatigues 
of the inns with their cigar, flageolet or herbal. Grave as the 
English themselves, they are without their ostentation of for- 
tune, and do not shew themselves off any more than they talk. 
They pass by unperceived, and do not make others victims 
either to their pleasures, or their idleness. 

As for us French, it must be owned that we know how to 
travel less than any people in Europe. We are devoured by 
our impatience, our faculties are quick and perceptive ; but the 
least check fills us with disgust. Although our own home is 
not usually very comfortable, it exercises an influence over us 
even to the ends of the earth, which makes us irritable and un- 
willing to suffer privations and fatigues, and inspires us with the 
most puerile and useless regrets. Improvident like the Italians, 
we do not possess their physical strength to support the incon- 
veniences of our own awkwardness. We are on a journey, ex- 
actly what we are in time of war, ardent in the beginning, but 



278 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

sadly demoralized when disbanded. Whoever sees the departure 
of a French caravan on the steep paths of Switzerland may well 
laugh at such impetuous joy, at the foolish racing over the ra- 
vines, of all the labour lost, of all this strength lavished upon 
the outset uf the march, and of the useless attention so enthu- 
siastically bestowed upon the very first objects on the route ; 
such an observer may be quite certain, that at the end of an hour 
the caravan will have exhausted its moral and physical energies, 
and that towards the evening it will arrive dispersed, melan- 
choly, and harassed, hardly able to drag itself to its destination, 
and having bestowed nothing but a weary and abstracted atten- 
tion upon the subjects most worthy of admiration. 

Now all this is not so useless an observation as you may 
fancy. A journey, as it has often been said, is an epitome of 
man's life. The manner in which they journey therefore is a 
criterion by which nations and individuals may be judged ; the 
science of travelling is almost the science of life. 

I pique myself upon my science of travelling, but then how 
much at my own expense have I acquired it ! I wish no one to 
gain it at the same price, and I may say the same of all which 
constitutes my fixed ideas and voluntary habits. 

But if I can travel without ennui or disgust, I do not pique 
myself upon walking without fatigue nor being rained upon 
without being wetted. It is not in the power of any Frenchman 
to procure for himself a sufficient quantity of the Britannic fluid 
to escape entirely from the inclemency of the atmosphere. My 
friends are in the same case as myself, so that all along the 
road our toilette has been a subject of scandal and contempt for 
all the pneumatic tourists we have met. But how one is recom- 
pensed for this by the liberty it gives of extending oneself on 
the first mossy bank, of smoking oneself dry in a chalet, of 
traversing all the difficult pathways without a guide or a mule, 
of pursuing the Apollo butterfly with its large white wings 
spotted with purple, across the spongy meadows, of chasing 
one's fantasy of the moment, swifter and more lovely than any 
butterfly in the world, through every thicket, at the expense of 
appearing in the evening before the English, sunburnt, one's 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 279 

hair all disarranged, dusty, dirty or torn, and even running the 
chance of being taken for a mountebank. 

However, we were a little re-established in general opinion at 
Chamouni by [the appearance of the major in the federal uni- 
form, and the arrival of the Legitimist. Their excellent man- 
ners, and Arabella's gracious dignity re-established silence if not 
security around us. Nevertheless I believe the plate was thrice 
counted over that night, and for my own part, I heard Mrs. 
* * . * * anc i Lady * * * my neighbours, two youthful dow- 
agers of fifty to sixty, barricade their door as though they feared 
an invasion of Cossacks. 

" Do not you think," said the major, " that a country which 
is converted entirely into one great inn for all nations, must lose 
every characteristic of nationality ?" 

" But may we not address that very reproach to your Switzer- 
land?" said I. 

" Alas ! what prevents your saying so ?" said he, sighing. 

"And this Switzerland, who assumes," said Franz, u a proud 
position, and who, whilst thousands of English display their 
idleness there, chaces refugees from her territory ! A republic 
which unites itself to monarchies to track the steps of the 
martyrs to the republican cause, like wild beasts !" 

The beating of a drum disturbed us. 

44 What is that warlike noise for?" said Arabella. 

" It is because the frost is beginning, and the drum gives 
information of it to the inhabitants of the towns, that they may 
light the fires near the potatoes." 

The potato is the only wealth of this part of Savoy. The 
peasants think that by establishing a belt of smoke over the 
middle regions of the mountains, they intercept the air of the 
upper part, and prevent its reaching the potatoes. I do not 
know if they are right. If I were travelling at the expense of 
a government or learned society, or even of a newspaper, I 
should perhaps learn that, and many other things also, of which 
I now stand a chance of remaining as ignorant as most of those 
who talk and decide about them. But what I do know is, 
that this line of fires, established like beacons all along the 
mountains, produced a magnificent effect in the midst of the 



280 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

night. The silvery mist with which the valley was entirely 
covered was penetrated by their fiery gleams and columns of 
black smoke. Above the fires, above the smoke, and above the 
mist also, towered one of the granitic belts of Mont Blanc, 
black as ink, and crowned with snow. These fantastic outlines 
of the picture seemed to float in vacuity. Above the summits 
swept over by the wind, large stars sparkled in the cold clear 
sky. These mountain peaks, rising into the ether, through an 
horizon so gloomy and decided made the stars appear yet more 
brilliant. The red eye of the Bull, the ferocious Aldebaran, 
rose beyond an enormous column of granite, which seemed like 
the crater of a volcano, from which this infernal light had just 
burst forth. More distant, Fomalhaut, a star of blueish lustre, 
pure and melancholy, descended over a snowy summit, looking 
like a tear of compassion and mercy from Heaven over the 
valley, but in danger of being seized in its descent by the per- 
fidious spirit of the glaciers. 

Having concocted these two metaphors, highly pleased with 
myself, I shut my window. But in seeking for my bed, whose 
position I had missed in the darkness, I made an immense bump 
upon my head with the angle of the wall. This gave me a dis- 
gust to making metaphors all the following days. My friends 
were so obliging as to declare that they felt particularly sorry 
for the deprivation. 

The most beautiful sight I have seen at Chamouni, is my 
daughter. You can scarcely imagine the agility and pride of 
this eight years old beauty, enjoying her liberty amongst these 
mountains. The young Diana must have resembled her, when 
incapable as yet of pursuing the wild boar in the horrible 
Erymanthus, she gambolled with the young fawns upon the 
pleasant summits of Mount Hybla. Solange's fair complexion 
braves both sun and wind. Her half open shirt leaves her 
well formed chest uncovered, but nothing can change its un- 
alterable whiteness. Her long fair hair floats in light curls 
down her back; vigorous and flexible, nothing fatigues her, 
neither the short, sharp pace of the mules, nor the steeple chase 
down the rapid and slippery descents, nor the acclivities of the 
ountain which we climb sometimes for entire hours. Always 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 281 

grave 1 and intrepid, she colours with pride and vexation if we 
offer to assist her progress. Robust as a cedar of the moun- 
tains, and fresh as a flower of the valley, she seems to divine, 
although she cannot yet know the value of intellect, that 
God's finger has marked her brow, and that she may one day 
dominate by her moral power those who protect her by their 
physical strength at present. At the glaciers of Bossons, she 
said to me, " Be easy, my dear George, when I am a queen, I 
will give you all Mont Blanc." 

Her brother, although five years older, is neither so bold nor 
so strong. Tender and affectionate, he recognizes and seems to 
revere instinctively the superiority of his sister ; but he knows 
that goodness is also a treasure in itself. " She will make you 
proud," he often says to me, " but I will make you happy." 

Eternal care, eternal joy of life, despotic flatterers, greedy 
after the least pleasure, skilful in gaining it either by persist- 
ance or obstinacy ; candid in their egotism, instinctively pene- 
trated with the notion of their legitimate independence, children 
are our lords and masters, whatever firmness we may assume 
whilst with them. Mine certainly distinguish themselves 
amongst the most fiery and insubordinate, in spite of their 
naturally good dispositions ; and I own that I know no method 
of bending them to social forms, before society has made them 
feel the weight of the stone walls and iron harrows of custom. 
I may seek in vain for some good reason to give these beings 
just fresh from the hand of God, and enjoying his granted 
freedom for binding their free intellects down to so many 
foolish and useless observances. Without possessing habits 
which I have not, and a kind of charlatanism which I neither 
can nor will assume, I cannot imagine how I am to require that 
my children should recognize the pretended necessity of our 
absurd shackles. I have therefore only one means of authority, 
and I employ it when necessary, that is to say very rarely, 
absolute will, without explanation or appeal. But I advise no 
one to try this, unless with the power of making oneself loved 
as well as feared. 

I like systems very much, always excepting their application. 
I like the Saint Simonian faith, I esteem Fourier's system, I 



282 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

revere all those who in this accursed age, have never been led 
into vicious excesses, and who withdraw themselves into a 
life of meditation and research to dream of the salvation of 
humanity. But I think that with the smallest virtue put into 
action, and sustained by a certain amount of energy, more may 
be achieved than with the wisdom of all nations diluted in 
books. This came into my head, not apropos of my children's 
education, but apropos of that of the human race, about which 
Franz was discoursing from the height of his mule, whilst tra- 
versing the precipices of the Tete-Noire. I walked, guiding 
my daughter's mule down some difficult parts of the rocks, 
and chattered away at random. They declared war against me 
at Chamouni, because I had not been willing to dip into philo- 
sophy during our sojourn there. The major is learned, Franz 
is very much interested in science, Arabella penetrates into 
every thing with a clear and rapid glance. But as to myself, 
I am idle, careless, and as proud of my ignorance as any savage. 
They had all the advantage of the game against me, as they 
had all the slang of German metaphysics at their finger ends. 
I defended myself like a demon, and I believe we none of us 
understood the others. At first, I suspected the major was 
sounding my depth from the height of his own learning, and 
was trying to pronounce knowingly upon the poverty of my 
brains. I was not in a very great hurry as you may believe, to 
let him touch all the bumps and hollows with which nature 
has endowed my head. I only iike talking of myself with 
those I love, and although I found the major infinitely clever, 
(perhaps precisely for that very reason) I felt a secret mistrust 
of him. 

I was very much mistaken certainly. During the rest of the 
journey I found out, that he was as good as he was clever, and 
that his intellect, which I had thought so cold and puffed up, 
was more poetical than my own ; and I was equally ashamed 
and pleased at my late discovery. 

However, then thinking him rather pedantic, I was rude and 
mocking towards him the whole of the day. All the fine 
things he knew, I attacked, from the mere spirit of contradic- 
tion, and I was a very Vandal against his metaphysics. He 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 283 

thought me more stupid than I really was ; and I had reason 
to be glad of that ; for he began to feel a kindness for me, and 
to give up hunting over my brains with his microscope to find 
out the Satanic wonders he expected to discover. He found 
out I was a good fellow, not so very wise, and more of the 
nature of the cricket than the devil. 

After all, if he was more right than I in some respects, I 
maintain still that I was not wrong in what I wanted to prove. 
My error consisted in combatting systems which I gratuitously 
supposed were his ; and in knocking down the scaffold of cold 
and false science which I unjustly attributed to him, I instituted 
proceedings against all science, all method, all theory. I be- 
lieve really, God forgive me ! that I should have slandered my 
Jean Jacques himself if the major had taken his part. But 
he did me the favour not to think of it, and I, plunging up to 
my neck into the wildness of my beloved master, declaimed (a 
little less eloquently than he) against the abuses and absurdities 
of an empty philosophy. This is where I was right ; I hate 
that profound, tough, inextricable and barbarous philosophy, 
where the spirit is drowned, and the heart withered ; that icy 
metaphysics of the Germans, who analyse the human soul, and 
dissect the mysteries of the Divinity within us, without dreaming 
of implanting a generous thought in our hearts, or awaking 
one truly religious or human feeling. I revolted therefore 
against all those eclectic professors with whom I believed the 
major infatuated. I clung to deeds, to plain logic, to glowing 
practice, to republican principles, to the generosity of our 
French blood, to France ; in a word, to all which this Genevese 
appeared to despise, with his German metaphysics in his hand. 
To express all this, I let out a thousand follies ; the cunning 
major excited me, by treating me as a Jacobin ; and I, impe- 
tuous child of Paris as I am, I would not deny my ancestors, 
the sons of our progenitor Rousseau. The dispute was too 
eager for me to dream of making any reservations. It seemed 
tome that it would be cowardice to acknowledge our deviations, 
our ignorance, and our excesses of '93 in the presence of an ad- 
versary who seemed to attribute them to our philosophical 
France of the eighteenth century ; and from word to word, I 

T 



28H LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

got so excited, that I should have been capable of sending the 
major, Puzzi, the doll which my daughter was carrying en 
croupe, and even the mule they were rising on, together, to the 
guillotine. 

But suddenly I perceived that the major, tired or disgusted 
at my bad faith, was no longer listening. His head was bent 
over his book, and in the midst of the most lovely scenes of 
nature, he had neither eyes nor ears for any thing but a treatise 
on philosophy he had taken from his pocket. I took the liberty 
of rallying him upon it. 

" Hold your tongue," said he ; " you go through life merely 
observing how objects are coloured, shaped and apparently ar- 
ranged, without knowing, or desiring to know, the cause of any 
thing. You have looked well at the mountains from Chamouni 
to this place, have you not ? You have numbered the fir-trees, 
and you could map out in your mind the chain of mountains, 
in the same way as a geographical designer traces the sinuosities 
of the Saone from memory on a piece of paper. During this 
time, I have been seeking for the principle of the universe." 

" And have you found it out, major ? Pray let us share in 
your discovery." 

" You are extremely silly ;" said he, "I have found out no- 
thing, but I have thought about the principle of the universe, 
and that is a subject of thought which is well worth that of 
gazing at the sky, and thinking- of nothing." 

And bestowing a kick upon his mule, he left us behind, still 
poring over his book, and repeating to himself between his 
teeth, a phrase he had just read, which did not seem very clear 
to him : " The absolute is always identical with itself." 

" n By the time we arrive at Martigny," I ventured to say, " about 
eleven at night, he will perhaps have discovered twenty-three 
thousand different manners of interpreting these four words. 
I can imagine one cannot very well be in a good humour, when 
one has such contentions in one's mind." 

" You are both in the wrong to insult each other," said the 
sage Arabella. " Any man is wise who gives himself up to the 
impressions of the moment without occupying himself as to 
what will be thought of me. There is something yet more stupid 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 286 

than the indifference of the vulgar in the presence of the beau- 
ties of nature ; and that is forced ecstacy, and unceasing excla- 
mation. If the major is not in an artistic humour this morning, 
he shows far more sense and spirit in giving himself entirely 
up to his pre-occupation, than if he were to make melancholy 
efforts to reanimate his chilled enthusiasm." 

" Besides," said Franz, " I do not see what right we have to 
despise his indifference towards the landscape ; for we have 
done nothing but quarrel since our departure. As for Doctor 
Puzzi, he is catching grasshoppers in the hedges, and that is 
not much more poetical." 

Towards the decline of the day, we found ourselves at the 
highest point of the mountains, and were annoyed by an icy 
wind which blew the sleet in our faces. Beading over our 
mules, we hid our faces in our cloaks. The major was imper- 
turbable and dreamt of nothing but his absolute. Ten minutes 
or a quarter of an hour later we arrived in a temperate region, 
and the depths of the Valais opened beneath our feet, crowned 
with purple summits, and crossed by the Bhone like a gem of 
dead silver. Night came on before we had passed the belt of 
meadows which lead to Martigny, through beautiful turf watered 
by a thousand rivulets. A large hole in my shoe obliged me 
to mount on the major's mule, behind him and his absolute ;. 
and he did not spare me* my lesson. " Systems are not as de- 
spicable," said he, " as those people would have us believe 
who cannot follow the most simple reasoning for a quarter of 
an hour, or understand the clearest theories. Those are excellent 
habits of the mind which lead us to embrace in one coup oVceil 
all combinations of thought ; and when one can seize without 
effort, and compare without trouble or giddiness, all the moral 
and philosophical data which circulate in the intellectual world, 
I should imagine that one is quite as capable of understanding 
the age we live in, as if we were to cross our arms saying, " all 
which is obscure is unintelligible, and all that is difficult is not 
to be realized." 

1 "Bravo, Major ! down with the obscurantist!" cried the audi- 
tors with one voice. 

I was not very well pleased., especially as the mule had an. 



283 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

unusually rough trot, and the infernal major accompanied every 
phrase with a stroke of his spur, which made me suffer yet more 
from the mule's violent pace. I had a great mind to push him 
off into the first ditch we came to, and continue the journey 
without him ; but I was afraid he would revenge himself by 
some yet more ingenious malice, and as I have the misfortune to 
be rather heavy handed in my pleasantry, I submitted to my 
fate, hoping for a better opportunity. The kind Arabella, per- 
ceiving that I was mortified took up my defence. 

" If you had found out nothing in your science," said 
she, " besides the pleasure and advantage of judging your age, it 
would not be particularly profitable for us. It is not only in- 
telligence of which men stand in need, but of love and activity. 
This is doubtless what Piffoel wished to prove during the three 
hours he has been talking at random ; and this is what the 
major pretends not to see, although he is really as much con- 
vinced of it as any of us." 

"No! no!" cried I angrily, " he is convinced of the con- 
trary. If the major is learned, what matters to him, the suffer- 
ings and subjection of the simple and the ignorant ? If the 
major sympathizes with lofty spirits, the world feels no warmth, 
and the vulgar receive no consolation. Well then, find me a 
method of supporting your science upon a clear and laconic 
text ! and when you have formed a people upon that, you may 
make codes for them in thirty volumes if you like. Until then 
you are nothing but Brahmins ; you conceal truth in a well, and 
your most ancient adepts can scarcely explain your mysteries, so 
much are they complicated and enveloped in hieroglyphics ! For 
want of cutting boldly into the life of the matter, and courage- 
ously presenting all the peril and suffering of a grand expiatory 
crisis, you cause laughter by your enigmas, and merit in many 
respects the reproach of hypocrisy which is levelled against you. 
This is why all your scientific baggage benefits no one ; this is 
why we know nothing, or, when we try to study and interpret, 
we fall into a lamentable confusion. 

M And yet doubt not," replied Franz, " that the future of the 
world is in all this. The various elements of renovation, will 
constitute th3mselves some day into a noble unity. Oh ! no, 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 287 

so many beautiful and scattered works will not fall back into 
night ; so many generous sighs will not be smothered by the 
implacable indifference of destiny. What matter the errors, the 
weakness or the dissensions of the champions of truth ? They 
cannot elevate themselves above this poisoned atmosphere. Lost 
in a fearful melee, they mistake, flee from, and wound one ano- 
ther, instead of ranging under the same banner, and bending 
the knee before the strongest and purest amongst them. They 
lavish their strength in poetical engagements, in frivolous 
skirmishes. It is necessary that this breathless generation should 
pass away and be effaced like a winter torrent. It is necessary 
that it should carry with it, our prophetical lamentations, our 
protestations and our tears. After it, will come new combatants 
better disciplined ; instructed by our reverses, they will pick up 
our arms scattered on the battle field, and they will discover the 
magic virtues of the arrows of Hercules. 

" Embrace me, my poor Franz, and may God hear you/' cried 
I, springing from my mule ; " you really neither speak nor 
think badly for a musician." 

The major smiled in his beard, and looked at us with paternal 
eyes. His heart sympathized with our flight of emotion to- 
wards the future, and he began to seem to me less infernal 
than I had taken it into my head to suppose him. 

A servant in a very ill temper opened the door of the Grande 
Maison Hotel at Martigny. 

M There is no reason why you should make such grimaces,'* 
said Franz, who was quite sprightly and warlike, to her face. 

She nearly threw her torch at his head. Ursula began to 
weep. " What is the matter?" said I. " Alas," said she, " I 
knew very well that you would take me to the end of the world ; 
and here we are at Martinique. Now we must cross the sea to 
get back again ; they told me you would never be contented to 
stop in Switzerland !" 

" My dear," said I, " console and feel proud of yourself. In 
the first place, you are at Martigny in Switzerland, and not at 
Martinique. And then, you are quite as well acquainted with 
geography as Shakespeare." 

This last explanation appeared to flatter her. Franz gave 



288 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

orders that trie caravan should be wakened at six o'clock in the 
morning. We threw ourselves upon our beds, quite overcome 
with fatigue. I had done the journey nearly entirely on foot, 
that is to say, eight leagues. The major had well remarked this, 
and had kept one of his tricks for me. He shut himself up with 
his treatise upon the Absolute, and Puzzi, whom he thrashed to 
prevent .his snoring, and sought all the night through for the 
true interpretation of this terrible phrase — " The Absolute is 
identical with itself." 

Not having found one to satisfy himself entirely, his satanic 
humour was exasperated, and at four o'clock in the morning he 
came and made a frightful noise at my door. I wake up, and 
dress in extreme haste, pack up my baggage and run all over 
the house, busy, and rubbing my eyes, struggling against fatigue, 
and fearing to be too late. Profound silence reigned every 
where. I began to believe the caravan had set off without me, 
when the major, in his night cap, appeared yawning at his 
chamber door. 

" What whim is in your head now ?" said he with a ferocious 
smile, " and what makes you so very early ? Really you are 
extremely tiresome on a journey. Do keep quiet, we have still 
another hour to sleep." 

kk Damned major !". . . . cried I, in a fury. The name has re- 
mained fixed upon him, it was even more expressive than my 
pen would be allowed to write. It is another word for anointed-* 
and as the language is eminently logical, it is an epithet of sub- 
limity when placed after the substantive. 



" Friboueg. 

We entered the church of St. Nicholas, in order to hear the 
most beautiful organ that has ever been made. Arabella, ac- 
customed to sublime realizations, and whose lofty soul is insati- 
able and imperious both towards God and man, seated herself 
proudly on the balustrade, and casting her melancholy and 

* This word instead of damno—*ns saere— implying a curse before a 
noun — but implying consecration after the noun. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 28$ 

thoughtful looks towards the lower nave, waited, and waited in 
vain, for those celestial voices which vibrated within her bosom, but 
which no human voice, no instrument made by mortal hands can 
ever produce to her ears. Her long fair hair, uncurled by the 
rain, fell over her white hands, and her eyes where the heaven's 
blue had shed its softest tint, interrogated the power of the 
creator in every sound drawn from the mighty instrument. 
" This is not what I expected," said she simply, without think- 
ing of the ambition implied in her words. " Exigeante /*' said 
I, " you did not find the glacier sufficiently white the other day 
on the mountain ! Its lofty crests which seemed cut from Parian 
marble, its sharp indentations at whose feet we were as dwarfs* 
did not seem worthy of your haughty' glance. The torrent's 
voice, according to you, is dull and monotonous, the height of 
the fir-trees astonishes you no more than that of the reeds of the 
river bank. You mete out both heaven and earth. You de- 
mand the palm-trees of Arabia Felix upon Mont Blanc, and the 
crocodiles of the Xile in the foam of the Reichenbach. You 
would wish to see Cleopatra's galleys on the immoveable waves 
of the Mer de Glace. From what planet have you descended, 
you who despise the world we inhabit so much ? Xow you wish 
that crabbed old man who is looking at you with such a stupified 
air, should find under his perruque, a little . more than God's 
power to satisfy you ! 

In fact, Mooser, the old musical instrument maker, as myste- 
rious, melancholy and crabbed as the man with the black dog 
and the macaroons of Hoffmann, was standing at the other end 
of the gallery, looking at us with a sombre and suspicious air. 
A singular man, if ever there was one, he did not seem to ap- 
preciate at all the simple and sublime harmony which our great 
artist drew from the organ. In truth, our friend did not draw 
out all the powers of the machine. He simply sought for the 
purest tones, and did not even regale us with one little thunder 
clap. Therefore the organist of the cathedral, a fat young man 
with crimson cheeks, a familiar gossip and quasi protector of our 
friend, kept pushing him gently every moment, and taking his 
place without ceremony, began, with sheer strength, of arm to 
make us understand the power, really grand power, I must con- 



290 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

fess, of .musical charlatanism. He did so much with hands, 
elbow, wrist, and I believe with knees also, (and all this with 
the most phlegmatic and benevolent air) that we had a com- 
plete storm, rain, wind, hail, distant cries, dogs in distress, 
travellers' prayers, disasters in the chalets, the crying of 
frightened children, the bells of the cows who had strayed, the 
noise of the thunder, cracking of the fir-trees, and for finale, 
destruction of the potatoes. 

As for me, a simple peasant, artist, or rather a rough work- 
man, quite enthusiastic for all this harmonious riot, and finding 
in this coarsely draw r n picture all the rustic scenes of my life, I 
approached the Friburg Maestro, and cried out with emotion : 

" Monsieur, that is really magnificent ; but I beg you to let 
me hear that clap of thunder once more ; although I think if 
you were to sit down suddenly upon the key -board, you would 
produce a finer effect still." 

The Maestro looked at me with astonishment, he did not un- 
derstand a word of French, and to my great vexation, my friends 
refused to translate my iequest into German, under the pretext 
that it was not a proper one. So once more in my life, I was 
obliged to give up the completion of my emotion. 

Nevertheless, the old Mooser had remained impassable during 
the storm. Placed in his corner like a stiff and angular statue 
of the middle ages, scarcely at the very height of the tempest 
had the most imperceptible smile passed over his lips. It is 
true that with my exception, all the family had been most bru- 
tally insensible to the rain, the thunder, the bell, the lost cows, 
&c. I even thought that this inappreciation of the pulmonary 
strength of his instrument had deeply wounded his feelings: 
but the syndic has just told what caused his abstraction. 
Mooser is not contented with his performance, and he is quite 
wrong, I declare ; for if he has not attained perfection, at least 
he has made what is most perfect of its kind. But like all 
exceptional characters, the great man has also a little spice of 
madness. The storm is, as it appears, his ideal. A sublime 
hobby, worthy of the brain of Ossian ? but difficult to conquer, 
and always breaking loose just when the paternal artist thought 
he had subdued it. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 291 

Just see a little ! the noises of the air under all their auditory 
forms had entered into the stops of the organ, like Eolus and his 
numerous progeny into Ulysses' goatskin- sack, but lightning alone, 
the rebellious lightning, intangible lightning, lightning which is 
neither a sound nor a noise, and which Mooser nevertheless wishes 
to express by some sort of noise, is still wanting in Mooser's storm. 
Here then is a man who will die without having triumphed over the 
impossible, and who will not enjoy his glory whilst lightning is defi- 
cient in music. It seems to me, Arabella, that you ought to pity 
instead of mocking him ; the madness of this old man has some 
resemblance to the sacred malady which is gnawing within your 
soul. 

After having explained to us Mooser's dream very gravely, and 
without any species of doubt as to its realization (for he himself 
tried to make us understand by a kind of hissing, the noise of light) 
the syndic conducted us over the interior of the immense machine. 
All these human voices, all these whirlwinds, all this orchestra of 
imaginary musicians shut up in tinned pipes, recalled the genii 
of the Arabian tales, condemned by superior powers to grumble 
and groan in metal coffers fastened by a signet. 

They had told us that Mooser had been invited to Paris to con- 
struct the organ for the Madeleine ; but the syndic said there was 
no further question of it. Doubtless the French government, less 
munificent than that of a canton of Switzerland, had drawn back 
from the necessity of remunerative payment for workmanship of 
the first order. Nevertheless, Mooser is the only one capable of 
filling the enormous building of the Madeleine with the grand in- 
vocations of prayer, and there alone would he be able to display 
all the powers of his science. Thus the monument and the work- 
man cry aloud for each other. 

It was not until Franz threw his hands freely over the keyboard, 
and made us hear a fragment of the Dies irce of Mozart, that we 
understood the superiority of the organ of Fribourg over all others 
we knew. The evening before, we had heard that in the little 
town of Bulle, also one of Mooser's, and we had been charmed at 
the quality of its tones ; but then perfection is remarkable in that 
of Fribourg, especially the stops for the human voice, which, 



292 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

piercing through the bass, produced the most complete deception 
upon the children. There might have been some beautiful stories 
told them about the chorus of invisible virgins, but we were all 
absorbed by the austere notes of the Dies irce. The Florentine 
profile of Franz never appeared more pure and pale, or under a 
more sombre cloud of mystic terrors and religious melancholy. 
There was an harmony which unceasingly returned under his 
fingers, and of which each note translated itself to my imagination 
by the simple words of the funeral hymn ; — 

" Quantus tremor est futurus 
Quando judex est venturus, &c." 

I know not if these words corresponded in the author's idea 
with the notes to which I attributed them, but no human power 
could have driven these terrible syllables out of my head, Quantus 
tremor. . . . Suddenly, instead of making me feel cast down, this 
menace of justice appeared to me like a promise, and quickened 
the pulses of my heart with an unknown joy. A confidence 
and inner calm whispered to me, that eternal justice would not 
destroy me, that amongst the crowd of the oppressed I should 
pass forgotten, even forgiven under the harrow of the judgment 
day, and that the great and powerful of the earth would be alone 
crushed before the eyes of the victims of their pretended rights. 
The law of retaliation, reserved for God alone by the apostles of 
christian mercy, and celebrated by a chant so solemn and so grand, 
did not seem too frivolous an exercise of celestial power, when I 
remembered that there was a question of such crimes as the de- 
basement and enslaving of the human race. 

" Yes," said I, while the divine anger was resounding over my 
head in thundering notes, " there will be fear for those who have 
not feared God, and who have outraged him in the noblest work 
of his hands ! for those who have violated the law of conscience, 
for those who have loaded their brethren with fetters, for those 
who have thickened the veil of ignorance over their eyes ! for those 
who have proclaimed the slavery of the people a divine institution, 
and that an angel brought from heaven the poison which marks 
the brow of monarchs with folly or madness ; for those who buy 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 293 

the people and sell their flesh to the dragon of the apocalypse ; 
for all these there will be fear, there will be consternation !" I was 
in one of those fits of enthusiasm which beautiful music or good wine 
sometimes raises within us in one of those internal agitations where 
the soul, after a long slumber, seems to roar like a torrent about to 
burst from the icy chains of winter, when, turning towards Arabella, 
I saw an expression of piety and tenderness upon her face, doubtless 
she had been impressed by notes more sympathetic with her 
nature. Every combination of sounds, lines, or colours in works 
of art, causes secret chords to vibrate within us, and reveals the 
mysterious links which connect each individual with the exterior 
world. When I had been dreaming of the vengeance of the God 
of armies, she had meekly bowed her head, feeling that the aven- 
ging angel would pass by without striking her, and her enthusiasm 
had been called forth by some softer and more touching phrase, 
perhaps for 

Recordare, Jesu pie 

During this time the clouds were driving by, and the rain was 
beating against the windows ; then the pale and slanting beams of 
the sun appeared to be again obscured in a few minutes by a fresh 
burst of storm. Thanks to these unexpected effects of light, the 
white and spruce cathedral of Fribourg appeared even more cheer- 
ful than usual, and the figure of King David, habited after the 
theatrical costume of the time of Pradon, in a black perruque, and 
red morocco shoes, seemed smilingly calling on us to come and 
dance again before the ark. And yet the instrument was thun- 
dering like the voice of Almighty God, and the inspiration of the 
musician invoked all the purgatory and hell of Dante in these 
domes with their grey and rose-coloured mouldings. 

The children, lying on the ground like young dogs_, slumbered in 
fairy dreams on the gallery steps ; Mooser seemed rather sulky, 
and the syndic was questioning the major as to our names and 
quality. At each ambiguous response of the malicious cicerone, 
the good-hearted and curious magistrate looked at us alternately 
with doubt and surprise. 

" Ouais r said he, staring at Arabella's beautiful brow, "so 
that is a Paris ladv ? and the other ?" 



294 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

"The other:" said the major, pointing to me, "that young 
man in a damp blouse and dirty gaiters and two children at his 
feet ? Well, those are three of the pianist's pupils." 

" Ouida ! does he *make them travel with him ?*' 

" He has a mania for dragging his school after him. He teaches 
the theory of his art by the hedge side, mounted on a mule." 

" In fact," replied the chief magistrate of the town of Fribourg, 
" they all have long hair falling on their shoulders like he has ; 
but," said he, throwing a scrutinizing glance upon the problematical 
personage of Puzzi, " who then is that ?" 

" A celebrated Italian cantatrice who follows him disguised." 

" Oh ! oh !" cried the good man, with a very sly smile, " I 
guessed that was a woman !" 

All of a sudden the wind failed in the organ bellows, and it 
gave the last sigh in Franz's hands. The first vesper bell had 
sounded, and if the soul of Mozart himself had appeared to beg 
the bellows-blower to retard the nasal psalmody of the service for 
a single minute, it would have been in vain. I had a great wish 
to go and beat him, and I thought of thee, amiable Theodore, 
facetious Kreyssler Hoffmann ! bitter and charming poet, ironical 
and tender, the spoilt child of every muse, romancer, painter and 
musician, botanist, entomologist, mechanician, chemist, and some- 
what of a sorcerer ! it is in the midst of the fugitive scenes of thy 
artist's life, a prey to the cruel and burlesque struggles into which 
the love of the beautiful, and the sentiment of a sublime ideal 
engulphed thee, combatting with the insensibility or bad taste of 
citizen life, swearing against those, and prostrating yourself before 
these, that thou didst feel life, now wild with joy, now devoured 
by ennui, but most often jesting, thanks to thy courage, thy philo- 
phy, and must it be said ? to thy intemperance. 

But adieu, my old friend, this is enough rhapsody for a fortnight. 
I leave you, and am setting off for Geneva. 

Best remembrances, and terrible shakes of the hand to all 
friends at Paris. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 205 



LETTER XII. 

TO GIACOMO MEYERBEER. 

Geneva, Sept. 1836. 
My Dear Master, 

You have allowed me to write to you from Geneva, and I am 
daring enough to use the permission, knowing well that they will 
never accuse you of comradeship, with a poor poet of my sort. 
This is why, against all received custom, I shall tell you all my 
admiration without fear of wounding your modesty. I am no dis- 
penser of fame, I am but a scholar of no importance in art, and 
masters may accept my enthusiasm with a smile. 

I will relate to you then a day of my journey, a day commenced 
in a church, where I thought of nothing but you, and finished in 
a theatre, w,here I spoke of nothing but you. That I may not 
annoy you with myself, I will make a recapitulation of my reverie 
and my dialogue. 

I entered the protestant temple, and I heard the psalms, noble 
chants, pure and brave hymns, half warlike, half religious, sacred 
vestiges of the heroic ages of faith, as old and expiring as our 
own ! 

If I were to judge of the protestant religion by the sermon I 
heard, and of the protestant character, by the insipid faces which 
hardly filled one corner of the church, I should have a fine oppor- 
tunity for loading the church, the form and the adepts of the reli- 
gion, with my superb disdain ; but it is fashionable to do this at the 
present day, and I shall take care net to do so, for I have a great 
suspicion of all that is fashionable, more especially in the literary 
world. Our generation is so shoitsighted, that in thought as in 
the flesh, it lives entirely in the present day, it judges of men of 
all past ages by the degenerate man of to-day, it determines upon 
every thing, and decides that slavery is the natural condition of 
humanity, indifference its eternal inclination, weakness and ego- 
tism its inevitable organization, its necessary infirmity. It has no 
faith either in great men or great things, and the reason of this is 
simple. 



296 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

Those who have so arranged their lives as to live beyond those 
grave puerilities and pedantic squabbles with which intelligent 
minds nourish themselves to-day, feel yet a great admiration for 
the past, and from this cause also, a great indulgence for the pre- 
sent ; for seeing what was yesterday, one sees what may be to- 
morrow, that the passing hour, the age in which one lives, proves 
no absolute truth as to the progress or degeneracy of mankind. 

Men of actuality (as they say now), seeing the calvinistic tem- 
ples as unpeopled as the catholic ; and the protestants make a bar- 
gain of their faith as we do of ours, have inferred that the Refor- 
mation has been from the first, the flattest idea in the world, and 
the religious force of that idea the most poverty stricken and and 
of all forms. 

By a strange reaction, which the caprice of fashion can alone 
explain, (for in the time of Benjamin Constant, not so very dis- 
tant a period, there were everywhere praises and sympathy for the 
reformed religion, aversion and railing against Catholicism), all 
the writing and declaiming generation throws itself into the em- 
brace of a newly dated orthodoxy, singularly amalgamated with 
an incurable atheism and a magnificent disdain for all practical 
Christianity. 

Literary men of gentle characters, penetrated with horror at 
the savage expiations of 7 93, have arrived at such a point as I am 
told, as to say carelessly, between the Opera-BufFa and Tortoni's 
ices, benignant formulas of such a strength as this : " The massa- 
cre of St. Bartholomew, was simply a grand and wise measure of 
lofty policy, without which the throne and the altar would have 
been the prey of the factious.' ' " If one looks at things from 
above f there was in the massacre of the Huguenots, neither exe- 
cutioners nor victims, but a war of legitimate defence, provoked 
by plots dangerous to the safety of the state,'' &c. &c. 

The words factious and safety of the state , have been admira- 
bly made use of ever since there have been oppressors and 
oppressed. Each time that an idea of safety has germinated in 
the brain of one party, the others have constituted themselves the 
defenders of their own advantages and privileges, dissimulated 
under the pompous names of the inviolability of the government 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 297 

and of public safety. When a government is threatened, it invokes 
the shopkeepers whose windows have been broken by the mob, and 
it despatches the liberators of human intelligence to the scaffold, 
under the pretext, that they trouble the sleep of the venerable 
citizens of the place. 

Our generation, which showed itself proud and strong enough 
one morning to chase away the Jesuits in the person of Charles the 
Tenth, cannot, as it seems to me, without a very bad grace, spit 
at the courageous attempts at reform, and insult the great name 
of Luther in his religious posterity. Which of us was not fac- 
tious in 1830? Did not the family of Charles X. also represent 
the safety of the state ? Has it not been necessary, in order to 
effect the reconciliation of a whole people up to a certain point, to 
shake off the yoke of the most revolting prejudices, to cause 
the tardy and inevitable reign of popular justice to make one step 
forward ; has it not been necessary, I repeat, to break many win- 
dows, and disturb many sleepers? I hope, for the rest, that 
these words of monarchial quackery have lost all pretence to sig- 
nificance in men's conscience, and that those who use them may 
not be able to meet each other without laughing. 

I should willingly yield to our newly born catholics the praise of 
reason and wisdom, if whilst declaring as they do, that they pro- 
scribe bad princes, dissolute monks, and attribute to them all the 
discredit into which their dear orthodoxy is fallen, they did not 
reserve anathemas, yet more bitter and ferocious, against the puri- 
fiers of the gospel. But then logic is quite at fault when they 
attack the reformation of Luther, they who assume the position 
of new reformers of perfected christians. 

If one were to re-establish convents and benefices, they would 
utter frightful cries, and would be Luther and Calvin over again, 
without deigning to perceive that the idea is not new, and that 
the path toward a just reform has been worn by footsteps more 
noble and more decided than their own. I should like to know if 
these fine professors of the catholic faith, blame the measures 
taken in the National Assembly relative to the possessions of the 
clergy ; on the contrary, I think, they were very well pleased at 
them, and that they would not be contented at seeing the convents 



298 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

and monasteries rebuilt at the expense of the forms which their 
parents installed forty years since, upon the ruins of those pro- 
perties, so agreeably acquired, so profitably cultivated, so good to 
take — in a word, so good to keep. 

If they despise Luther and Calvin, because of the war they 
waged against ecclesiastical riches with a view towards Christian 
perfection, and not towards the profit of a newly formed clergy, I 
advise them not to boast of it, and to keep their national property, 
without insulting those, who, daring to be the first who preached 
to the apostles of Jesus, the poverty, the austerity and humility of 
their divine master, prepared for the catholic clergy what has hap- 
pened to them in France, and what is happening to them in Spain. 
The apparent hypocrisy of those who attack them, would strike 
us with horror, if their childishness, their partiality for the first 
paradox that comes in their way, their apish nature and total want 
of reasoning did not make us smile. 

Having placed these fundamental questions before my eyes, I 
entered the Geneva temple, and listened with much mildness to 
the sermon of a gentleman who had a very pleasant countenance, 
and whose name, for that very reason I rejoice at having forgotten. 
He taught us, that if industry had made any progress in Switzer- 
land, it is because the religion of Geneva is protestant (therefore 
we are free to believe that, if industry is flourishing with us, it is 
because we are catholics.) He also told us that God always be- 
stowed wealth upon pious men, which doctrine did not appear very 
certain to me, nor very conformable to the spirit of the gospel ; 
then, that, if his auditory were wanting in fervour, that the price 
of merchandize w r ould fall, trade go to the devil, and the citizens 
be obliged to drink bad wine and smoke damaged tobacco. I be- 
lieve even that he added, that these beautiful mountains and lovely 
lakes, with which Providence had gratified the protestants of 
Geneva, might even be suppressed by some divine decree, if peo- 
ple were not more assiduous at divine service. The auditory 
retired quite satisfied after singing some psalms, and I remained 
alone in the temple. 

When these impassible faces, upon whose brow Lavater could 
only have inscribed the word exactitude : when this pastor with 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 299 

his nas;J tones had ceased his remonstrances, so paternally pro- 
saic,- the reformation, that grand idea, without symbols, without 
veils, without mysterious ornaments, appeared to me in all its 
greatness and all its nakedness. The church with neither taber- 
nacle* nor sanctuary, the colourless windows brightened by a bril- 
liant sun, the wooden forms, on which equality is throned (at 
least at the hour of prayer), the cold smooth walls, all the aspect 
of order which seems recently established in a devastated ca- 
tholic church, the theatre of an entirely military installation, struck 
me with melancholy and respect. Here and there, some figures of 
pelicans and chimaeras, vestiges of the ancient faith, twisted them- 
selves as though captive and complaining, round the capitals of the 
columns. The grand domes were neither catholic nor protestant. 
Elevated and profound, they seemed fitted to receive aspiration 
towards heaven under all forms, to respond in all rhythms to 
prayer and religious invocations. From these flags, never warmed 
by protestant knees, seemed to proceed grave voices, and accents 
of calm and serene triumph, there the sighs of the dying, and the 
murmurs of a tranquil, resigned and confiding death, without 
groan or struggle. This was the voice of the calvinist martyr, a 
martyr without ecstacy and without delirium, whose torments are 
smothered under austere pride and lofty certainty. 

Naturally, these imaginary accents took the form in my mind of 
the beautiful psalm of the opera of the Huguenots ; and whilst I 
thought I could hear the furious cries, and the heavy firing of 
the catholics, one of the grandest figures of the dramatic art, one 
of the finest personifications of the religious idea, which has ever 
been produced by the arts in the present day, passed before me, 
the Marcel of Meyerbeer. 

And I saw the statue of bronze standing there, clothed in his 
buff armour, and animated by the divine fire which the composer 
has endowed it with. I saw it, oh master, pardon my presump- 
tion, as it must have appeared to you yourself when you came to 
seek it at the brave bold noontide hour, under the resplendent ar- 
cades of some protestant temple, vast and light as tbis one, 

♦ Tabernacle, in a catholic church, the little closet in which tha sacred 
vessels for the sacrament are kept, 

f 






300 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

Oh musician more poetical than any of us ; in what mknown 
depths of your soul, in what hidden treasure of your intellect have 
you found these pure and sharply cut features, this conception as 
simple as an antique, truthful as history, lucid as conscience, strong 
as faith ? You who were lately on your knees in the voluptuous 
shadows of St. Mark, and erecting your Sicilian church in pro- 
portions yet more magnificent, inebriating yourself with catholic 
incense at the gloomy hour when the tapers are illumined and the 
walls of gold and marble sparkle in their light, giving yourself up 
to the tender yet terrible emotions of the holy place ; how is it 
that you have known how to evoke in Luther's temple his 
austere poetry, and resuscitate his heroic dead ? We thought 
your soul was disquieted and timid like Dante when, carried away to 
hell, and to heaven by his genius, he experienced fear or tenderness 
at every step. You have surprised the secrets of the invisible 
choirs, when at the elevation of the host the angels in Titian's 
mosaic wave their large black wings, over the golden ground of 
the Byzantine dome, and hover over the kneeling people. You 
have pierced the impenetrable silence of the tomb, and under the 
shuddering pavement of the cathedrals your ears have heard the 
bitter wailings of the damned, and the menaces of the angels of 
darkness. You have seized all these dark and strange allegories 
in their deepest meaning and their sublimest sadness. Between 
the angel and the demon, between the fantastic heaven and hell of 
the middle ages, you have discerned man divided within himself, 
torn between the flesh and the spirit, drawn towards the darkness 
of brutality, but protected by vivifying intelligence and saved by 
a divine hope. You have depicted these struggles, these fears, 
these sufferings, these promises and this enthusiasm in their serious 
and touching features, still leaving them enveloped in their poetic 
symbols. You have known how to move and trouble our feelings 
with chimerical personages, and impossible situations. This is 
because a human heart still throbs in the artist, and feels all the 
impressions of real life, it is because high art does nothing that 
is insignificant, and that the soundest philosophy and the sweetest 
human sympathies always preside over the most brilliant caprices 
of genius. 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER, SCI 

But may we not believe, after this great catholic work of 
Robert, that all your power and all your inspiration were kindled 
in your German, and consequently learned and conscientious intel- 
lect, under the sky of Naples or Palermo ? Are not you a brave 
and profound spirit of the north, changed into an impassioned 
character by a southern climate ? In your modest and touching 
manners, your language full of grace and timid vivacity, in the 
species of combat which seems to exist between the enthusiasm 
of the artist and what I scarcely know how to express, the appre- 
hensive pride of the man of the world, I find all the charm of 
your works, all the piquancy of your manner. But the sublimity 
of the great interior me being veiled by custom and the legitimate 
reserve of words, I asked myself if you would long continue to 
lead the foremost rank of science and poetry, Germany and Italv, 
the pomp of Catholicism, and the gravity of protestantism ; for 
there is already somewhat of protestantism in Bertram, in that 
gloomy and rebellious spirit whose cries of grief and anger are 
sometimes interrupted to mock and despise the credulous faith, 
and the vain ceremonies by which he is surrounded. This fine con- 
trast of audacious doubt, and desperate courage, in the midst of 
these mystic sighs and enthusiastic feeling towards saints and 
angels, proved already an union of various powers, a lively compre- 
hension of the changes of thought and religious character in man- 
kind. Apropos of the Huguenots, it has been said that there is no 
protestant music, any more than there is catholic music, which is 
equivalent to saying that the psalms of Luther which are sung in 
Germany have not a different character from the Gregorian chant 
of the Sistine chapel ; as if music were nothing but a skilful ar- 
rangement of sounds more or less calculated to please the ear, and 
that rhythm, alone appropriated to dramatic situation, suffices to ex- 
press the sentiments and passions of the lyrical drama. I confess 
that I do not understand this, and that I must ask if the principal 
beauty of Guillaume Tell does not consist in the pastoral Helvetic 
character, so admirably felt and so nobly idealized? 

But many other paradoxes for the intellect have been put forth 
about 'you, with which I shall not vainly trouble my brain. Until 
a light breaks in upon me, I remain convinced that it is possible 

u 2 



302 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

for the most beautiful of all the arts, to paint all the shades of 
sentiment and all the phases of passion. Except metaphysical 
dissertation (and for my own part I do not regret this) music can 
express all things. The description of nature finds in it both 
colour and ideal lines, which, neither exact nor minute, are but 
more vaguely and deliciously poetical. Does not the pastoral 
symphony of Beethoven open to the imagination, even more ex- 
quisitely and more grandly than the finest paintings, a valley of 
Engaddi or Misnia, a terrestrial paradise to which the soul wings 
her flight, beholding a limitless horizon open before her, pictures 
where storms are raging, birds singing, a tempest rising, or dying 
away, where the sun is drinking the dew from the leaves, and the 
lark shaking her humid wings, where the weary heart may expand 
itself, the spirit and the body be re- animated, and identifying itself 
with nature, sink into a delicious repose. 

When the noisy and disorderly sounds of the Pre an Clercs 
fade away in the distance, when the curfew utters its melancholy 
voice, mournful as the hour, and dying away like the light of day, 
is there any need of the painted red canvass of the opera and the 
adroit management of half a dozen lamps to enable the mind to 
represent the fading tints of the horizon, the expiring noises of 
the town, slumber extending her grey wings in the darkness, the 
murmur of the Seine which resumes its empire as the cries and 
sounds of human life are lost in the distance. At this 
moment of the representation, I like to shut my eyes, bury 
my head in my hands, set in fancy a heaven more brightly 
glowing, and a city painted in truer tints than, without offence to 
Monsieur Duponchel, the beautiful decorations, and skilful manage- 
ment of his fading lights. How often have I execrated the rising 
of the sun, which accompanies the last chorus of the second act 
of Guillaume Tell! Oh canvass! oh pasteboard! oh tinsel! oh 
machinery ! what have you in common with that magnificent 
prayer in which all the rays of the sun display themselves so ma- 
jestically, where the king of day himself appears in his splendour, 
seeming to make the snowy mountains open to send him into the 
hoiizon as the last notes of the sacred song peal forth. But in 
this respect, music has yet a greater power. There is no need of 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 303 

a complete melody ; a few modulations are all that are wanted to 
send dark clouds, sweeping over the blue heaven and covering the 
face of Phoebus, to create volcanoes, and hear the cyclops roaring 
in the bowels of the earth, or to bring back the moist breeze and 
send it breathing over the trees withered by fear. Alice appears, 
the weather is serene, nature is full of wild and primitive har- 
monies. Suddenly the sorcerers are heard weaving their frantic 
dance under her feet. The earth shakes, the turf dries up, and 
subterranean fire escapes through every pore of the groaning soil, 
the air is darkened, and unearthly fire illumines the rocks. But the 
fiends carry their sabbath deeper into the inaccessible caverns, 
nature breathes again, the heavens are pure, the air is again fresh, 
the rivulet resumes its course interrupted by terror ; Alice kneels 
and prays. 

Apropos, and spite of the length of this digression, I must tell 
you, master, a trifling fact entirely personal to myself, but for 
which I have always wished to testify my gratitude to you. Two 
years ago I went into the country to pass two of the saddest 
months of my life. 1 had the spleen, and whilst I was suffering 
from its fits, I was not very far from madness. All the furies, all 
the demons, all the serpents, all the broken and dragging chains of 
your sorcerer's sabbath were raging in my heart. When these crises, 
following the routine of all maladies, were beginning to clear off, 
I discovered an infallible means of hastening the transition, and 
gaining tranquillity in a few moments. This was to make mv 
nephew, a handsome fresh- coloured curly-haired youth, seat him- 
self at the piano, he was serious and full of a tender monachal 
gravity, endowed with unchanging brow and unalterable health. 
At assign which he understood, he used to play my beloved modu- 
lation of Alice at the foot of the cross, a perfect and charming 
image of the state of my soul at the moment, of the end of the 
storm and the return of hope. What poetical and religious con- 
solations fell like holy dew from these sweet and penetrating notes. 
The chaffinch who lives in the white lilac-tree at my window, used 
to forget the cold of winter, and began to sing as though it were 
May* The hemerocale * on the chimney-piece half opened, and 

* A flower — the day-lily. 



304 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

shed its pure perfume over me as the last notes sounded. The 
pastille of aloes fumed in my Turkish pipe, the hearth sent forth its 
brilliant gleams, and my nephew, patient as a steam-engine and 
devoted as a son, recommenced this adorable passage twenty times, 
until he saw his dear uncle throw all his woollen wrappers on the 
ground and begin to make the most graceful bounds about the room, 
throwing his cap up to the ceiling, and sneezing for twenty minutes. 
How can I help blessing you, my dear master, who have cured 
me so often better than a doctor, for your cures were done without 
suffering and without a fee ! and how could I believe that music is 
merely an art of amusement and simple speculation, when I remem- 
ber I have been more touched by its effects, and more convinced 
by its eloquence than by all my books of philosophy ? 

To return to the first appearance of the Huguenots, I own to 
you that I did not expect so intellectual and so strong a work, 
and that I should have been contented with less. I did not fore- 
see all the advantage you could draw from the subject, that is to 
say, from the idea of the subject, for what subject could embarrass 
you after the apocalyptic poem of Robert ? Nevertheless, I had 
admired Robert so much that I could not imagine I should like 
your new production more. I went therefore to hear the Huguenots 
with a kind of sadness and anxiety, not for you, but for myself; I 
knew that whatever the poem on the subject might be, you would 
find in your science of instrumentation and your skill in ingenious 
resources, both the means of governing the public, checking the 
discontented, and quieting the many-headed Cerberus of criticism by 
producing all your gilded cakes, all your grand orchestral effects, all 
the riches of harmony of which you possess such inexhaustiblemines. 
I did not fear for your success, I knew that men like you impose 
upon us all that they will, and that if inspiration faib them, science 
supplies its place. But the poets ! those incomplete and morbid 
beings, who know nothing, and study so little, but who have a pre- 
sentiment^ divination of all things, it is difficult to deceive them and 
no warmth emanates from the altar on which the sacred fire has 
not descended. How great was my joy when I felt myself 
touched, affected by this agitated history, by these truthful cha- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER, 305 

racters, without allegory, as much as I had been troubled and 
agitated by the emblematic struggles of Robert ! I had neither 
the coolness nor the leisure to examine the poem. I laughed a 
little at the style when I read it afterwards ; but I feel the diffi- 
culty of writing for singing, and besides, I am infinitely obliged to 
Monsieur Scribe (if it is not you who have given him the subject 
and the finest situations) for having thrown you into a new arena, 
into another epoch, another country, another religion especially. 
You have given proof of a high power for the development of the 
religious sentiment, and it was an excellent idea of his, (always 
supposing it was not you who gave it to him) to give you a 
religious form which was not the same, and which did not oblige 
you to abuse your resources. 

" But inform us how, with twenty or thirty insignificant verses 
you have contrived to design such individualities, and create per- 
sonages of the first order where the author of the libretto has 
only indicated accessories. This old servant, rough, intolerant, 
faithful in friendship as to God, cruel in war, distrustful, anxious, 
full of cold blooded fanaticism, sublime in his joy and calm at 
the hour of martyrdom, is he not the type of the Lutheran idea 
in all the extent of its poetical development, in all the accepta- 
tion of the true ideal, of artistic reality, that is to say, of all 
possible perfections ! The tall handsome brunette too, so cour- 
ageous, enterprising and enthusiastic, careless of her reputation 
as of her life, and passing from catholic fanaticism to the serenity 
of the protestant martyr, is not this a strong and generous figure, 
worthy to take a place beside Marcel ? Nevers, the handsome 
young man, in his white satin doublet, who has only, I think, 
three or four words to say in the libretto, you have known how 
to give him a gracious, elegant and chivalric physiognomy, a 
nature which one likes notwithstanding its impertinence, as he 
speaks with a bewitching melancholy of the number of the court 
ladies who will be driven to despair by his marriage. Except in 
the two last acts, the part of Raoul, notwithstanding your skill, does 
not escape from the utter nothingness imposed on it by Monsieur 
Scribe. The quick sensibility and rare intelligence of Nourrit 
struggled in vain against this character resembling a senti- 



306 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

mental grasshopper, the true victim of circumstances, as we say in 
romances. But how the character is elevated in the third act I 
what advantage is drawn from a scene which a puritanism, other- 
wise estimable, has blamed rather carelessly, and which, to me, 
who think no evil, either of a swoon or of a sofa in the scene, 
has appeared pathetic, mournful, and not at all anacreontic ! 
What a duo ! what a dialogue ! master ! how you can weep, 
pray, shudder and conquer in the stead of Monsieur Scribe. Oh 
master ! you are a great dramatic poet, and maker of romances. 
I yield your little page up to criticism, he cannot triumph over 
his ungrateful position ; but I defend the last trio against each 
and all, an imitable scene, spoiled and broken up, because [the 
situation requires it, because its dramatic truth is of some con- 
sequence to you, who do not admit that there may be a difference 
between the music of a musician and the music of a literally man. 
but that there is a music of true passion and probable action, 
where the charm of the music ought not to struggle against the 
situation, and cause the cavatina to be sung according to rule with 
the consecrated coda and inevitable trait of the hero who falls 
covered with wounds upon the arena. 

It is full time, L think, to subject art to the yoke of common 
sense, and not to force the naive spectator to say : M How can 
these people sing in such a fearful situation ?" It is necessary 
then that the song should be a true pianto y and that one should con- 
descend to free oneself from the beaten track, to such a point as 
to seduce the most simple mind, and make it feel something more 
than the mere emotion of conventionalism. You have given proof 
that this may be done, master, and when Rossini has willed it, 
he has proved it likewise. 

Permit me in the meantime to express a wish to you. This is 
rather insolent on my part and I detest insolence under all its 
forms and pretences. Therefore do not imagine, I beg of you, 
that I am offering you advice. Rut sometimes, as you are aware, 
an ignorant person has a good idea from which an artist may 
draw some advantage in the same way that he draws his boldest 
conceptions from the most naive and unforeseen impressions, the 
splendour of temples from the wild grandeur of the forests, full 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 307 

and scientific melodies from some rustic sounds, sobbing breezes, 
or murmuring waters. This is what vexes me : why this con- 
secrated form ? why this coda, a kind of uniform and heavy 
framework ? why this trait, equivalent to the perilous pirouette of 
the dancer ? why this habit of sending the voice, towards the end 
of every song, through all the highest and lowest notes of the 
scale ? why all these commonplace and monotonous forms which 
destroy the effect of the finest phrases of melody ? Will the" time 
never come when the public will be tired of them, and will recog- 
nize that the moral action (which is, whatever they may say, in- 
separable from the lyrical action) is interrupted every moment by 
the inevitable ritornella ; that all grace, all naivete, all freshness 
is degraded or defaced by this rigid wand, by this unintellectual 
and trivial formula, from which one does not dare to disembarrass 
oneself ? Listz compares this formula to, "I have the honour to 
be your very humble and obedient servant," which one puts at 
the bottom of all letters of ceremony in the falsest and most 
absurd acceptation as well as in the most just and truly felt. It 
appears that the vulgar crowd still cherish this old custom, and 
believe that no scene is finished without the four or eight bars of 
common-place roulade, which is neither melody, harmony, singing 
nor recitative. In this ridiculous situation, the interest remains 
suspended, the actors, forced to assume an attitude more and 
more theatrical, are forced to scream at the top of their voices 
and exaggerate the efforts of their cold transport which the 
melody no longer sustains. The supreme effect of passion or 
emotion, required by what has preceded, is lost and overwhelmed 
under this formula, just as if, in the midst of a tragic scene, the 
dramatis persona, animated by their position, were to salute the 
public several times over. 

You have not entirely freed yourself from this condescension to 
an ignorant public and the requisitions of unintelligent singers. 
You could not do so, I think. Perhaps even, you have only been 
able to get your most beautiful ideas accepted by favouring the re- 
ceived custom of these formulas. But at present, cannot you 
educate your audience, impose your own will upon it, put it into 
leading strings, and reveal to it a purity of taste of which it is ig- 



303 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

norant, and which no one has yet been able to proclaim ? This 
immense success, such brilliant victories gained, also impose duties 
upon you, for beyond popular favour and human glory, there 
ought to be the worship of art and the faith of the artist. You 
are the man of the present, master, be also that of the future. . . . 
But if my idea is ridiculous, my request inexpedient, imagine that 
I have said nothing. 

Now that lamina dreaming mood, I dream of a poem for you 
which would transport you entirely into paganism, the Eumenides, 
the fearful opera, ready arranged, by iEschylus ; where the death 
of Orpheus, so terrible, so simple, and yet, so easy to describe when 
associated with a man like yourself, who has only need of a 
gauze canvass to form it into a veil of gold and precious stones. If 
I could rhyme two lines together, master, I would beg you to 
prescribe all the scenes to me, and I should be proud to see you 
attempt Grecian melodies, fuller, more complete, more simple 
in their accompaniment perhaps than your preceding subjects 
have required. I should then see'you do all that you are defied to 
accomplish, and reply as a great artist, to menaces, by victory. But 
such happiness will not be given to me. I do not understand prose, 
how should I then know verse ? As to my Greek subject, you 
know what is fitted for you better than I do, but it will tempt 
you some day, I answer for it. 

Master, I am no connoisseur, my voice is bad, and I cannot play 
on any instrument whatever. Forgive me if I do not speak the 
technical term 9 of hypercriticism. Even if I were an enlightened 
dilettante, I would not scan your chefs-d'ceuvres to try and find 
out some slight fault which might give me the opportunity of 
showing off my science ; I would not seek whether your inspira- 
tion came from the head or the heart, a strange distinction signi- 
fying absolutely nothing, an eternal reproach addressed by critics 
to artists ; as if the same blood were not throbbing in the bosom 
and the temple ; as if, supposing that there are two distinct parts in 
man destined to receive the sacred fire, the warmth which mounts 
from the entrails to the brain, and that which descends from the 
brain to the entrails did not produce exactly the same effects in art 
and in poetry ! If one were to say that your temperament is san- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 309 

guine-bilious, that you are a slow worker, but that, although you 
work less rapidly, vet it is with more perfection than the sanguine 
and plethoric, I should pretty well understand what they wanted 
to say, and 1 should think it quite simple and natural that you 
were not endowed with all the temperaments at once ; but what 
matters it to me that you have upon your piano a decanter of 
water, clear as crystal, instead of a flask of Cyprus wine, if it 
inspire you as others are inspired by wine ? What pedagogic 
fury torments these poor literary appreciators, incessantly occupied 
in mistrusting their own sympathies, and in asking themselves if 
the Venus of Milo were not chiselled by the left instead of the 
right hand ? To see the trouble which men of talent give them- 
selves to pierce the mystery of the workshop and penetrate the 
secret of the watchings and the reveries of the artist, fills one with 
chagrin and regret to see this family of intellect, fruitful without 
doubt, impoverish itself of all its power in order to arrive at 
what it calls clear-sightedness and impartiality. 

Doubtless it is good and necessary that men of taste should give 
the common herd the right direction and undertake its education. 
But it is well known that even the noblest profession hardens 
those who practice it exclusively. As the surgeon accustomed to play 
with suffering, with life and death, as the judge systematises himself 
easily, and setting out from wise deductions, is induced to feel too 
much confidence in his own distrust, and not to see truth except 
under arbitrary points of view. Thus criticism proceeds con- 
scientious at first, it soon arrives at an overscrupulous casuistry, 
and it finishes by feeling nothing, through reasoning so much. 
When one no longer feels, reasoning becomes merely specious, and 
appreciation a labour more and more ungrateful, painful, may not 
I say, impossible ? At the end of a repast, where one has eaten to 
excess, the finest meats lose their savour, and the sated palate no 
longer distinguishes the freshness of fruit from the fire of spice. 
The man who insists upon experiencing all the enjoyments of life, 
cannot in the end even sleep upon down, and imagines the bed of 
heather upon which he slept at first warmer and softer. Deplo- 
rable error as far as art is concerned, but it is an inevitable 



310 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

condition of human nature I The first essay of youthful talent 
is seen, and perhaps treated with more affection and kindness 
than it merited. But those who judge grow old sooner than 
those w^ho produce. Where we look at life as an everlasting 
spectacle in which we fear or disdain to take a part, we are soon 
tired of the actor because we are tired of ourselves. We follow 
the progress of the artist ; but in proportion as he acquires or 
loses by inaction, unknown to himself, the sacred fire which he 
derives from the godlike law of labour, the very day w T hen 
he produces his chef-dceuvre, he is no longer cared for ; we look 
back with regret to the first day of emotion which he gave us ; 
a day lost and engulphed under the riches of the past, a sweet 
and precious emotion which we weep for and never find again. 
The artist has become a Prometheus ; but the man of clay is 
petrified and remains inert under the divine breath. We say 
that it is the artist who has degenerated, and we know not that 
we lie ! 

This is the history of the public in matters of art, and of ge- 
nerations in matters of politics ; but this history is summed 
up in a fearful manner in the short moral existence of the un- 
fortunate being who gives himself up to criticism. He sees his 
whole age compressed into a few years, his beard is hardly grown, 
and yet his brow is already w r orn by ennui, fatigue and disgust. 
He might have taken a brilliant and honourable place amongst 
productive artists, but he no longer has the strength to do so, 
he has faith in nothing, and in himself less than in anything else. 

When one casts one's eyes, some day when courage or curi- 
osity reigns, over the twenty or thirty judgments which are 
printed the day after the appearance of any literary trifle, one 
feels quite astonished at such mind, such learned reasonings, 
ingenious parallels, sublime dissertations, for the most part 
written in a rich, ornate, and dazzling style ; and one regrets to 
see the treasures which in other times, would have supplied a 
whole year, scattered p£le-me*le at the feet of a careless public 
which scarcely looks at them ; and which does well, for suppos- 
ing that the truth could be discovered across this kaleidoscope of 
contradictory ideas and sentiments, this truth would be so futile, 
so common-place, so easy to be expressed in three lines, that the 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 311 

day would have been lost in cutting down an oak to form an 
allumette. A man of good sense therefore examines the object 
of discussion himself, and is very little disquieted as to knowing 
whether the critic allows the author a grain or a hundred weight 
of glory. 

It is not that I despise criticism for itself ; I esteem and re- 
spect it so much in its aim and possible and desirable effects, 
that I grieve to see it go out of its road and become more hurtful 
than useful to artists, more amusing than instructive for a public, 
at once idle, indifferent and satirical. I wish to believe the men 
who exercise it full of loyalty and possessed by one single passion, 
the love of truth and beauty. Well then ! I grieve that the or- 
ganization of this useful and respectable body should be so bad 
that its management becomes impossible if not fatal, and that 
its consideration falls each day under the suspicions and jests of 
the ignorant crowd. If I had to seek a remedy for so much 
abuse and confusion, the following would be my Utopia. 

First, I should wish the number of critics much increased, at 
the same time the n amber of criticisms published should be very 
much restricted. I should wish criticism not to be made a 
trade, and that there should not be criticism every day and upon 
every thing. Since the public desire to have journals, "end that 
the columns of the journals should be the chairs of eloquence 
assigned to certain athletic professors, I should like every journal 
to have its jury, of competent men chosen according to the spirit 
and opinions of the journal, and called to pronounce upon any 
work of importance ; I wish that a crowd of youths, without 
knowledge, taste or experience were not admitted to judge the 
seniors in art, to make or mar rising reputations, upon the 
mere recommendation of an easy style, a facility of compilation, 
or ingenious and pleasant manner. I should wish no one to 
exercise criticism as a profession, but that any man of talent and 
knowledge should fulfil its serious and noble functions as a duty 
and through love of literature, competent to draw all honourable 
benefit from it on occasion, since the priest is permitted to live 
by the altar. 

I am not one of those who think that artists alone ought to 
judge artists. On the contrary, I think generally this is a bad 



312 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

test, and that the journals would soon become in the hands of 
rivals of the same profession, the theatre of combats both in- 
dignifled and uncontrolled, where passion being always upper- 
most, truth would be less than ever displayed. The part of a 
critic would demand, it is true, peculiar knowledge, besides a 
calm and disinterested judgment, and it is very difficult to find 
this calm and disinterestedness in any one who feels his destiny 
is in the hands of the public. Without therefore excluding 
artists whose experience, settled position, and exceptional cha- 
racter might offer sufficient guarantees, I would give few means 
of governing opinion to men to whom public opinion is a per- 
sonal and exclusive necessity. 

And if this crowd of young beaux -esprit s, who live by reviews 
and feuilletons, complain of having no means of publicity or op- 
portunity of development, I would say to them : 

11 Be grateful to those measures which make you labour and 
produce ; you worked like eunuchs and slaves ; you w r ere con- 
demned to bathe, to dress and undress the children of the rich ; 
be fathers in your turn. Whether your children be deformed or 
beautiful, strong or weak, you will love them, for they will be 
your own. Your life of hatred and pity will change into a life 
of love and hope. You will not all perhaps be great men, but 
at least you will be men, and at present you are not." 

And if, through being more thoughtful and judicious, critical 
judgments should become rarer (which would be inevitable) if 
the conductors of the journals should complain of empty 
columns, and the public of the absence of the feuilleton, why 
should not these blank pages alas, so longed for and so difficult 
of access, be open to all those unknown and modest talents who 
are repugnant to enter upon \ criticism without experience, and 
who, vainly seeking means to pierce the obscurity in which tney 
languish from the want of an editor who comprehends them, 
and lends them his paper and print gratis ? All those young 
pamphleteers, who are now obliged to present themselves like 
firemen or policemen at every new representation, and to write 
gravely all night on the most unworthy pasquinades of the minor 
theatres, (sure to cite the deluge apropos of a capon) why 
should not they be called upon daily to publish those poems or 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 313 

romances which lie slumbering in the head or desk, smothered 
by the necessities of a brutalizing trade ? Poor children ! young 
Levites of art ; stained in the bloom of your powers by the scan- 
dalous requirements of the press, you who would have been 
with joy, meekness, love, and with a special advantage too, the 
disciples of great masters, fear not that I condemn you without 
pity, and that I do not understand what there is, what there 
might be in you, both good and pure ! I know your secrets, 
and your vexations, I have drunk of the cup of your sorrows ! I 
know that more than one amongst you, sitting at midnight in 
his cold and miserable garret, obliged to have the next day 
(what is equivalent to the daily bread of the artists of old) a 
whole coat and new gloves, has allowed his face bathed in tears 
to droop upon some beautiful new production which envy has 
ordered him to insult and which his deep sympathy forces him to 
throw afar from him, that he may condemn the artist without 
hearing him. Pity for you who have been obliged to blush for 
yourselves ! Shame and condemnation for those who have for- 
gotten how to blush ! 

But why, Master, have I occupied you so long upon French 
criticism ? you are too highly placed to care about it, and perhaps 
you are ignorant that it has endeavoured to dispute the palm 
which the European public has every where offered you ? Far 
from me be the vulgar thought of consoling you for injustice, 
which you must have received with the smiling humility of a 
conqueror, if they ever happened to reach your ears. I know 
not whether men like you are as modest as their gracious man- 
ners and exquisite politeness gives room to suppose, but I know 
that the consciousness of their strength inspires them with a 
lofty wisdom. They live with the god and not with men ; they 
are good, because they are great. 

Do you remember, Master, that one evening I had the hon- 
our of meeting you at a concert given by Berlioz r We had 
very bad places, for Berlioz is any thing but gallant in the dis- 
tribution of his tickets, but it was a stroke of gcod fortune for 
me to be thrown just there by the crowd. They were playing 
the Marche du Supplice. I shall never forget your sympathetic 
grasp of the hand nor the effusion of sensibility with which 



314 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

that hand, laden with crowns, applauded the great but misap- 
preciated artist, who so heroically struggles against an un- 
rateful public and a bitter destiny ; you would willingly have 
shared your trophies with him, and I went away with my eyes 
full of tears, without too well knowing why, for what marvel is 
it that you should be thus ? 



LETTER XII. 

TO MONSIEUR NISARD. 



Sir, 

There are very few critiques which are worthy the 
trouble of being accepted as to their praise, or rejected as to 
their blame. If I receive with gratitude all that yours so be- 
nevolently expresses, and if I try to combat its severity, it is 
because I find in it, besides talent and enlightenment, a fund of 
toleration and good faith. 

If there were nothing concerned but the satisfaction of 
my own vanity, I should have but thanks to offer you ; for 
you bestow upon the imaginative portion of my tales much 
more praise than it merits. But the more touched I feel by 
your suffrage, the more impossible I find it to accept your 
blame in certain respects ; and it is in order to clear myself that 
I commit (much against my will and contrary to my habits) the 
impertinence of speaking of myself to any one to whom I have 
not the honour of being known. 

You say, sir, that the hatred of marriage is the aim of all my 
books. Permit me to except four or five, amongst others, Lelia, 
which you class amonst the number of my pleadings against 
this social institution, and in which I do not know that the word 
is even uttered. Lelia may also serve as an answer, amongst all 
my productions, to the reproach you address to me of wishing 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 315 

to re-establish the egotism of the senses, and of pursuing the meta- 
physics of matter. Indiana did not appear to me when I wrote 
it, to be an apology for adultery. I believe that in this ro- 
mance, (in which there is no adultery committed if I remember 
rightly) the lover {the king of my books as you wittily call him) 
has a worse part than the husband. Le Secretaire Intime has 
for its subject (if I am not entirely deceived as to my own in- 
tentions) the sweets of conjugal fidelity. Andre is neither against 
marriage nor for adulterous love. Simon terminates by mar- 
riage, neither more nor less than a tale by Perrault or Madame 
d'Aulnoy ; and in Valentine, the catastrophe of which is neither 
skilful nor original I confess, the old fatality intervenes to pre- 
vent the adulteress from enjoying in a second marriage, the 
happiness she had not strength to wait for. In Leoni, the ques- 
tion of marriage is no more touched upon than in Manon Lescaut, 
to which I endeavoured in a purely artistic intention, to form a 
sort of pendant, and in which certainly, frantic love for an un- 
worthy object, the subjection which a corrupted being imposes 
by his strength upon another being blinded by her own weak- 
ness, is not presented in results more engaging than in the in- 
imitable romance of the Abbe Prevost. There remains then 
Jacques, the only one I believe, which has been so happy as to 
obtain some attention from you, which is assuredly more 
honour than any production of mine merits from a man of 
gravity. 

It is quite possible that Jacques proves all that you have 
found in it hostile to domestic order. It is true that the con- 
trary has also been found in it, and both parties may be in the 
right. When a book, however trifling it may be, does not prove 
clearly, solely, and without dispute or reply, that which it wishes 
to prove, it is the fault of the book, but not always the fault of 
the author. As an artist, he has deeply sinned; his inex- 
perienced and unsteady hand has misinterpreted his thought ; 
but as a man he has not necessarily had the intention of mys- 
tifying the public or altering the principles of eternal truth. 

At Florence and Milan\many anecdotes, true or false, are re- 
lated of the immortal Benvenuto Cellini. I have been told, that 
it often occurred to him to undertake a vase, and design its form 

x 



316 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. ' 

and proportions carefully. But whilst executing it, he was oftes 
so interested for one figure or one festoon, that he was led away 
to enlarge the one and displace the other in order to give his 
favourite a more graceful development. Thus carried away by 
a love of detail, he forgot the work in the ornament, and per- 
ceiving the impossibility of returning to his first design, instead 
of the cup he had commenced he produced a tripod, instead of 
a ewer a lamp, instead of a Christ, the handle of a sword. Thus, 
although pleasing himself, he dissatisfied those for whom his 
work was destined. 

Whilst Cellini was in the full strength of his genius, this 
impatience was even a merit, every work from his hand was a 
master-piece and irreproachable in its kind ; but when persecu- 
tion, the disorder of his life, travelling and misery had reduced 
him, his weaker hand and less ready inspiration produced works 
marvellously well finished in the details and of inconceivable 
awkwardness in the tout ensemble. The cup, the tripod, the 
sword-handle all mingled in his brain, contended one with the 
other, united, and at last all found a place in compositions with- 
out form and without use, without reason and without unity. 
This state, attributed to the great Benvenuto, in the decrepitude 
of his genius, happens every day to the incomplete talent which 
has not yet attained its virility, and which perhaps never escapes 
from infancy. 

It is this which happened to me in writing Jacques; and 
doubtless all my other writings show the effects of the haste of 
the ardent and unskilful workman, who pleases himself with the 
fancy of the moment, but who misses the end through taking 
too much delight in the means. 

It is not therefore to the reader, who has so favourably and 
yet so harshly judged me, that I appeal from his own sentence, 
but to the artist whose talent has also doubtless had its days of 
youth, and hours of temptation. He ought to be very reserved 
in his conclusions, and know that there is nothing so difficult in 
the world, nothing so complete a triumph of will, as to say 
exactly what one wishes to say, to do exactly what one wishes 
to do. 

It is the workmanship, not the intention, that you should have 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 317 

Dlamed for that which is against reason in my works. It 
was not necessary to believe that I had such a determinate 
anti-social aim ; nor certainly was it necessary to attribute 
so much ingenuity, science, and firmness to my mode of pro- 
ceeding. In a word, the talent is perhaps far below, and the 
conscienciousness far above what you have imagined in me. 
The existence of three-fourths of our artists is consumed in pro- 
ducing the incomplete parts of a whole which remains for ever 
buried in the sanctuary of their intellect. 

What I do accept as entirely true in your judgment is this : 

" The ruin of husbands, or at least their unpopularity, such 
has been the aim of the writings of George Sand." 

Yes, Sir, the ruin of husbands, such would have been my am- 
bition, had I felt the strength to be a reformer ; but if I have 
not succeeded in making myself understood, it is because I have 
not felt this strength, and that in me there is more of the nature 
of the poet than the legislator. You will give its just value, I 
hope, to this humble claim.] 

I imagine that the romance is like the drama, a school of 
manners, where the abuses, the follies, the prejudices, and the 
vices of the times are the property of a censure capable of taking 
all forms. It has often happened that I have written social laws 
instead of the italicized words above, and I did not think for a 
moment there was any danger in doing so. Who could suppose 
I had the intention of remaking the laws of the country ? In 
truth, I have been not a little astonished when some St. 
Simonians, conscientious philanthropists, amiable and sincere 
seekers after truth, have asked what I would put in the place of 
husbands ; I replied to them simply, marriage, in the same spirit 
as instead of priests, who have so gravely compromised religion, 
I would put religion itself. 

It is perhaps true that I have committed a great fault of speech 
when speaking of the abuses, follies, prejudices, and vices of society, 
in expressing myself collectively and saying society.. I have 
also been wrong in saying often marriage instead of persons mar- 
vied. All who know me more or less, have not been misled by 
this, because they know I have never dreamed of reconstructing 
the constitutional charter. I thought the public cared so little 

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318 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

for me individually that no one would take it into his head to 
criminate my use of words, and exercise a kind of inquisition 
over an unhappy poet, even in the shelter of his garret, to force 
him to justify his actions, his words, his thoughts, his belief, to 
define the exact meaning of expressions more or less vague, but 
generally placed so as to explain themselves. It is possible that 
the public has not played a very dignified part in all this, and 
that the male portion, considering themselves the insulted party, 
have given themselves up to a somewhat puerile gossip upon a 
subject little worthy such a melancholy honour. Alas ! sir, I 
reproach myself every day with a very grave fault, that of not 
being Bossuet nor Montesquieu ; but I have not much hope of 
correcting myself of this fault, I must own. 

Another serious reproach you address to me is this : "It 
would be more heroic, in those who have not a happy destiny, 
not to scandalize the world by their misfortunes, by making a 
private grievance into a social question," See. &c. 

All this paragraph is nobly felt and nobly written. The sentiment 
expressed in it will never meet with my opposition. I estimate 
patience and abnegation beyond every thing, and I shall reply to 
nothing which concerns me personally in this reproach. If I were 
writing to a priest, perhaps a general confession might bring me 
a full pardon, while at the same time it involved penitence. But 
as yet Jean Jacques alone has the right of confessing himself in 
public. 

I will reply then in a general manner. It seems to me that 
there is great pretension to patience and abnegation in the 
world. It seems to me (I know not if I am deceived) that we 
are not living in an age of independence and unbounded pride ; 
I do not see that men have a very lively sense of their dignity 
in the present day, and that it is at all necessary to ask them to 
bow the knee yet lower than they already do before considera- 
tions and interests which are neither religion, morality, order, 
nor virtue. In the same way, I do not see that the wives of 
these men approach too nearly to the courage of Spartan mothers, 
or the patriotism of Roman women. 

I know not if my sight is troubled, but I think I see that a 
great abuse is made of silence, by means of which one escapes 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 319 

the violent crises of marriage, from the disorders (it would be 
better to say, the calamities) of separation. In the times of faith, 
in the days when Christ was still worshipped, patience and ab- 
negation were the virtues most necessary to be recommended to 
women who had recently left the druidical altar, the bloody 
camp, or council of war, in which their husbands had perhaps 
allowed them to mingle a little too much ; but to-day, when our 
manners have no longer, that I know of, any connection with 
the forests of Germania, and especially since the Regency and 
the Directory have taught women the secret how to live on very 
good terms with their husbands, I have thought that if it were 
necessary to adopt a kind of morality for frivolous tales, one 
might adopt this, " The immorality of women is very often pro- 
voked by the brutality or infamy of men ;" or this, " Lying is 
not virtue, cowardice is not abnegation ;" or even this, " A hus- 
band who neglects his duties in levity of heart, laughing, swear- 
ing, and drinking, is sometimes less excusable than the woman 
who betrays hers in tears, suffering, and expiation." 

To make an end with the complete adhesion which I yield to 
your decisions, I must tell you that this love which I build up, 
and which I would crown upon the ruins of infamy, is my poetry, 
my dream, my Utopia. This love is grand, noble, beautiful, 
voluntary, eternal ; but this love, it is marriage as Jesus meant 
it, as St. Paul explained it, such as, if you will, chapter 4 of 
Part 5 of the Civil Code defines its reciprocal duties. It is 
this marriage, which I demand from society, either as an in- 
novation or as an institution lost in the night of time, which 
it would be very advisable to revive, and draw forth from the 
dust of ages, and the degradation of custom, if one wishes 
to see true conjugal fidelity, true repose, and true sacredness 
of family ties succeed the species of shameful contract and 
stupid despotism which the infamous decrepitude of the world 
has engendered. 

But you. sir, who look upon this social question from so high 
a point of view, you, an indulgent philosopher, a sensible 
moralist, who do not believe in the danger of so called immoral 
books, why when writing these few beautiful pages upon public 
morals, have you omitted so good an opportunity of rating the 



320 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 

cupidity, the habits of debauchery and violence, on the man's 
side, which authorize or provoke the crimes of the woman in so 
many unions ? Would you not have fulfilled the duties you 
have imposed upon yourself towards society more completely, 
if you had spoken favourably of the antique Christian morality 
which prescribes chastity and goodness to the head of the 
family ? There is no question here of exceptions of ill- assorted 
unions. All possible unions will be intolerable whilst custom 
yields an unlimited indulgence towards the errors of one sex, 
and the austere and salutary rigour of the past only remains to 
repress and condemn those of the other. I know well that it 
requires a certain courage to dare to say in the very face of a 
whole generation that it is unjust and corrupted. I know that 
to write all one thinks makes one many enemies amongst those 
who profit by the vices of their age, and that when one has 
this frankness, one must expect to suffer during the remainder 
of existence a persecution which does not even stop at the 
threshold of private life ; but I also know, that when some 
women have had this courage, that it would not be an act un- 
worthy of a man, and above all of a man of conscience and of 
talent, to pardon all that is deficient in their endeavours, and 
to give assistance and protection to all he recognizes as brave 
and sincere. 

If we had lived at the time when the TartufFe was persecuted 
as an impious work, you would have been one of those, who 
far from constituting themselves the champions of hypocrisy, 
resisted, with all the power of their conviction and all the 
purity of their heart, the sullen interpretations of criticism; 
you would have written and signed with your blood, then as 
now, that the intellect which produced the Tartuffe, was an 
eminently pious and honest intellect, that God is not attacked 
in the person of a hypocrite, that the peace and dignity of 
families cannot be compromised by chasing away infamous in- 
triguers. It is true that the Tar tuff e is a chef-d'ceuvre, and 
that it meets the sympathies of all elevated minds, both as to 
subject and execution. 

But if the pen of such writers is for ever lost, if the striking 
colouring of the great ages has vanished, if instead of Aris- 



LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 321 

tophanes, Terence and Moliere, nothing remains but George 
Sand and Co., the everlasting human weakness is not the 
less bleeding, infectious, exciting horror and pity. The eternal 
dream of all simple hearts, justice, is not the less rising, (afar off, 
it is true,) but still rising radiant, inevitable, calling for all 
efforts and all desires. Reduced to judge very feeble pro- 
ductions, would it not be better, ye who constitute yourselves 
judges, to look at the foundation of things, and spare the 
apostle to encourage the principle ? Thus you would supply the 
insufficiency of our means, and restore to this age what is 
wanting to it in strength and genius. 

I must now thank you, sir, for the good advice you have 
given me. I blame myself, I repeat, for if you have not always 
thoroughly understood me, it is my fault and not yours. The 
man who contemplates a battle from a high mountain judges 
better of the faults and losses of an army than he who marches 
in the dust and excitement of the combat. Thus the passion- 
less critic knows more about the impetuous artist and his labour 
than the artist does himself. Socrates often had occasion to 
say to his disciples, "You were to define science to me, and 
you have defined music and dancing ; but that is not what I 
asked you to do, and it is not what you wished to give me for 
an answer. 



THE END. 



3. BILLING, P3INTER AND STEREOTYPE*, TCoKING, STJBRW* 






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